Artefacts on screen

[RobTi]

Hi my son gave me his old rig to get back into pc’s so been dabbling over the last few weeks on and off, 2 nights ago get a pop up for updated drivers for the gpu radeon HD 7870 so install them, on next boot same pop up and noticed that the drivers are the same as I have installed, so I ignore, this happens a couple of times more after every boot, then last night I though I would try some old time gaming c&c. After about 30 mins I get a black screen and when rebooting I get bright purple/pink & green artefacts in bios and no screen in windows.
Clean install and still bios artefacts and boots into win 10 okay but with 2 lines of artefacts running down desktop then I get a windows update with Radeon drivers and black screen again.
Any help on what it is onboard gpu works as does an old gpu(ordered new mb,cpu & ram) for an upgrade and hoped to reuse this card ?
Thanks

[Jonj1611]

Had this before myself, GPU was dead in the end, you could try removing the heatsink and reapplying thermal paste. You could even try putting it in the oven. I tried both those methods on an older card and neither worked for me however

[RobTi]

Had this before myself, GPU was dead in the end, you could try removing the heatsink and reapplying thermal paste. You could even try putting it in the oven. I tried both those methods on an older card and neither worked for me however

Thanks as I’m getting it in the bios before the os loads I assumed it was the card, when I got it from my son I stripped down the card and cleaned everything and used new AS on the heat sink, oh well thanks

[Terbinator]

Usually the RAM that is the cause of that AFAIK, but could literally be anything.

[RobTi]

Usually the RAM that is the cause of that AFAIK, but could literally be anything.

The gpu ram ?, ordered a rx 580 anyway but would be nice to know

[philehidiot]

The GPU is likely dead. As for the question as to whether this is a fault confined to the GPU RAM - yes. Your system RAM is likely to be unaffected.

The only time I've seen this on a salvageable card was when it was confined to one output and the other was fine so I gave it to someone who could use the functional VGA output.

If it was under load I'd suggest servicing the sink and reapplying thermal paste and so on but I suspect this won't help if it's not under load conditions.

Sorry, but I think the card is dead and good for either a bookmark or as a Christmas gift for someone you don't like.

EDIT: I take it you didn't clean the card with a vacuum cleaner or similar? There are many "PC cleaner" hand held vacuum cleaners doing the rounds which have no mitigation for static charge at the business end.

[RobTi]

Many thanks to everyone for the helpful replies

[Noxious89123]

How much AS5 did you use? Whilst it isn't conductive, they manufacturer does state it is capacitive.

"(While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.)"

I expect you probably know what you're doing, but hey, you never know!

Did you test it or use it at all before redoing the TIM?