Poor Bourn's GPU was getting so hot you could fry an egg on it. IMO that is too hot. When his GPU had been getting that hot, it really should have been water cooled. And no, I am not joking either.
Its common practice to water cool high end gaming GPU's that tend to get super hot otherwise, especially though if your going to do overclocking. Well, I think the air cooler was probably not enough to cool the GPU.
And if he didn't have enough case fans inside his case to generate solid airflow, ya, the GPU could have taken a strong thermal hit. And don't forget, its not just the GPU itself that can overheat. The VRM could overheat, your mosfets, capacitors, VRAM.
You just never know unless you were to have the card tested by an electrical engineer who is a wizard with circuits and knows how to use a multi-meter. Truth is, I know my way around a multi-meter, you have to, in order to be a mechanic.
But, I am not an electrical engineer, I don't know all the continuity, resistance, ohms values of all the stuff on the PCB for testing, so thats why I say, tested by an electrical engineer, deffinetly. But most of us, would just toss the GPU and get a new one. I would very strongly caution buying used, because when you buy used, you can buy into other people's problems.
You don't know the history of the GPU, how the previous owner took care of it, or abused it. You don't know if its been zapped by static electricity, you just don't know. And sometimes a GPU can seem perfect fine while rendering 2D. But as soon as you start a 3D process, the computer goes to blue screen. !!!YIKES!!!
I think it succumbed to its own heat.
but the last thing I would try to replace are those things like GPU. It cost a lot. Its better to buy new one than upgrading if the problem lies with this stuff. (Well at least in my place where I live in)
