This morning my computer locked up several times out of nowhere. I checked the syslog and saw an amusing "GPU fell off the bus" error shortly before the crashes. Only tried like a single fix before a crash happened like 30 seconds after getting to desktop.

Decided to reseat the card and dust everything out as one does when they open up a computer, only to be reminded that the mini atx case makes it extremely difficult to actually get it in there solidly. A few years ago I just decided clean the interior for some spring cleaning, and could not get the video card to be detected afterwards.

Back then I assumed I managed to somehow fry the card in the process of cleaning everything, and awkwardly had to buy a GPU during peak ridiculous price era. Wound up buying an identical card off ebay to replace it with, and it too didn't work. Eventually managed to get it working and discovered that both cards were fine, nothing was broken. That card since got used to kickstart building a cheap bedroom PC to stream from so Geight doesn't have to worry about being picked up on mic.

So now I'm in the same situation, just assuming that I can eventually get it to function, and wasted the afternoon trying and failing to do so!

Except this time the card itself was causing crashes, so now I have to wonder if this morning was its dying breath or not. I really don't want to have to open up the other PC and try swapping cards to see if it boots with the currently out of commission one but I might have to!!!