Dying R7 370?

[Methanol Ethanolovicz]

Hey guys,

 

My brother called me a few days ago, saying that his PC suddenly stopped working. He said that he got vertical bars, followed by a black screen, and had to turn it off. After he turned it back on, the PC was able to post, but would sometimes get stuck at one of the booting screens, which only had a flashing underscore at the top left corner. When it managed to load the OS, it wanted to run repairs. Once those were complete, the PC restarted, only to run the repairs again. If he chose to start the system normally, he would end up with a black screen.

 

I thought that since the PC was able to boot into the OS, it wasn't caused by a hardware failure, but rather by a software issue. We've tried reinstalling the OS, which he was about to do anyway since wanted to switch to Windows 10. All went well, but once I tried to install the graphics driver, the screen went black again and wouldn't turn back on. I had to restart the PC, after which the same issues we've had before occurred, so we've tried removing the graphics card and used the integrated GPU on the motherboard instead. After this, the PC ran correctly again, so it looks like it was a hardware issue after all.

 

What do you guys think about this? Could the graphics card be dying? He had it for just about two and a half year, none of the PCs I've used had them die after such a short time. I've asked him to bring it to me so that we can try it on my PC. Fortunately for him, it's still covered by warranty. 

 

His setup:
Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2
AMD Phenom II X6 1045T
MSI Radeon R7 370 Gaming
4 GB RAM
Seasonic S12II-520
WD Green 1 TB

 

Interestingly, only the booting screen when the BIOS detects hard drives had a few colored pixels around the letters, but everything else looked just fine. Also, I wasn't able to open the settings, boot options, nor select how to start the OS with the keyboard he's currently using, and had to use an old one. (but it still sometimes didn't respond when I tried to access the boot settings)

[JohnDongus]

I've fixed the problem on a few of these with new thermal paste and undervolting 

[Methanol Ethanolovicz]

19 minutes ago, JohnDongus said:

I've fixed the problem on a few of these with new thermal paste and undervolting 

I'd rather not replace the thermal paste, removing the cooler would most likely void the warranty. Besides, thermals were never an issue. But I might try undervolting it and see if it does any good. 

[JohnDongus]

3 hours ago, Methanol Ethanolovicz said:

I'd rather not replace the thermal paste, removing the cooler would most likely void the warranty. Besides, thermals were never an issue. But I might try undervolting it and see if it does any good. 

Replacing the thermal paste won't void the warranty, older cards usually have thermal paste issues. But it's up to you. If you have a warrenty I would just return it. 

[Methanol Ethanolovicz]

Now that I come to think of it, I'd rather not undervolt it either. If there is an issue, I don't see a reason why I should try fixing it myself and hope that it will work for some time, when he can have it fixed under warranty. I'll test it on my PC tomorrow and see what it does.
 

[Methanol Ethanolovicz]

So we've tried running it on my PC. Since I didn't want to mess my own system or install multiple graphics drivers, I've swapped my primary drive for an old HDD I've had lying around and installed Windows 10 on it. The PC behaved just as my brother's, except that it didn't even load the OS this time, so even if I wanted to attempt fixing it myself, I wouldn't be able to do so.