There are a few things you can try to fix the graphics card before you cast a final judgement on it and buy a new one. While many of the above are symptoms of a dying graphics card, it doesn’t always mean it’s on its way out. If it works with either of those, it’s most likely your graphics card at fault. You’ll have to resort to integrated graphics or a cheap “throwaway” graphics card to see if it’s your card or your monitor acting up. Sometimes you won’t see any visual clues at all! A graphics card gone bad can simply decide to stop working and not display anything. This won’t crash your whole PC but can be very annoying if it happens frequently. When it returns, you’ll be informed that the video drivers have crashed and had to be restarted. Sometimes you’ll be using your PC normally when the screen will go black for a few seconds. If this fan is the one on your graphics card, it may be a sign that something’s not quite well with it. This is the telltale sound of one of your system fans going into overtime.

When you boot software that uses 3D graphics (or even when you boot up the computer!), you may hear what sounds like a small jet aircraft taking off within the PC. Colors will look strange, 3D models will stretch for no reason, “digital snow” will appear, or the entire screen will be covered in visual garbage. This is because the graphics card is how the PC “draws” onto the monitor.

When something is going wrong with the graphics card, you may notice this via bizarre visuals onscreen. Not every crash will be caused by the graphics card, but if you have memory dumps enabled, and they blame the graphics card driver, you can safely say it’s the culprit. These crashes can be varied, from a simple bluescreen, to a “lockup” (where the PC freezes but doesn’t show a bluescreen), to random restarts and powering off. Graphics cards that have gone rogue can cause a PC to crash.

How to install graphic card in bios