"Glittering" artifact, PC crashes

[Allshevski]

Okay, so I'm writing this like fourth time because my PC crashed again..

What happened is that I turned my computer on, then waited for couple of minutes for everything to finish loading, then opened task manager and used it for a while, then my screen went black so I clicked so it went all white so I clicked but nothing happened so I ckicked again and it said nvidia geforce experience is not responding so I decided I will wait and eventually it disappeared.

(All of the above happened pretty frequently couple of months before but it seems like is stopped for some time, now is the true mystery)

So I looked at my cute background of a cat and decided I will wait and see what happens with my terrible phone and its camera ready just in case. And then it happened, the "glittering" (I don't know how this artifact is called but it just looked like my screen was covered in glitter the first time I looked at it) so my PC totally froze, with some buttons flashing pink and with glitter patches all over the screen. Then it kinda stabilized and buttons were no longer flickering but the "glitter remained" and then my screen went black, no error mesages, just decided to cut power, but the fans ramped up just before it happened and windows startup logo appeared. Now, I don't have any overclock applied for like a month and a half, just turning fan curves all the way down in Afternurner. It could handle the heat pretty well. I also broke the 8 pin connector when my screwdriwer slipped as I was trying to undo a stripped head screw but again, it was two months ago and everything was running fine in FurMark (now it was only desktop background...) Also, I have installed the newest Game Ready driver and it was my second or third boot since I clicked "install". Also, I find my system throwing artifacts like crazy, before it was vertical stripes on windows loading screen kinda moving around but then my PC lost power and it sort of repaired itself. I don't know what else to say so feel free to ask questions. Also, please forgive me horrible text formatting but it's so hard on mobile.. Thanks in advance! (I will add photos in a while)

 

(And also, I need sleep, but I promise I will summon you back tomorrow)

[Naeaes]

Usually random artifacts is VRAM-related. You've only been monitoring the GPU temps and ignored the VRM and VRAM, right? Get your cooling back on and see if it's salvageable.

[Allshevski]

11 hours ago, Naeaes said:

Usually ramdon artifacts is VRAM-related. You've only been monitoring the GPU temps and ignored the VRM and VRAM, right? Get your cooling back on and see if it's salvageable.

Well.. Yeah.. but if it boots up normally and works for some time, can it be damaged in some way? Also, I'm not able to, it happens before I have access to Afterburner icon. Maybe safe mode will help. How stupid of me..

 

Edit: I mean, GPU has a big heatsink on it but it never went above 75 degrees while playing (I play on it for like 2 hours once a week) and that was only web browsing. Also, some rendering using CUDA acceleration but again, temps stayed at ~65 degrees. And there are (at least I think) VRAM chips on the back of the card under a backplate without any thermal pads so there is practically no way they would get cooled even with fans on. And it's GTX 960 4GB from GIGABYTE (WF2) so it doesn't get hot in general