Let me first say I am by far NOT the most tech-savvy, and I will do my best to refer to things by their appropriate name where I can, but I will likely have to use informal terminology to describe most things.
My desktop computer of 5 years stopped functioning correctly about a month ago and recently I was able to make it work again, but with a catch. A catch I would like to negate. First, let me say it is a Lenovo branded pre-built~ish desktop computer with mostly the things it came with (it didn't come pre-assembled, but it came with everything necessary to get started), there being two exceptions to that. I have a bigger power supply that I do not believe is relevant to my problem, and a newer, beefier graphics card that I needed the help of my tech savvy uncle to get working in the first place. (If you are wondering why I don't have him help me again, it is because he doesn't live nearby and when he did help me he happened to be visiting family around then anyway; and when I texted him what I'm about to describe to you nearly word for word, he just gave me a text-based shrug.)
So, my original graphics card is a GT 720. I used that for about a week before my uncle was able to help me get the GTX 660 in and working. From that point on, used it for 5 years without failure. Did my best to clean my case out from dust and other such things, et cetera. Then, a month ago nearly to the day (of me writing this), I was performing the latest driver update (because I had a game that would do well with it) and in the middle of installing it said that the update failed and to try again later. I immediately decided "later" will be in about 30 minutes. Then, about 20 minutes later, my computer monitors (I have only the two) both lost connection. Not black screen or anything, just no longer able to find the screens, I believe. I tried turning the screens on and off, unplugging them and plugging them back in, and turning the computer off and turning it back on. I did, however, conclude that it was just the monitors not working right and not a issue worse than that, because I was able to turn on the narrator and navigate my way into logging in just once after about an hour of being hopelessly confused, but got nowhere after that. I got nowhere for a month after that. Up until recently. Specifically, up until yesterday. Yesterday I decided to try and pop my old GT 720 graphics card in place of the 660. To my surprise, it worked. Flawlessly. Instead of the usual flicking through the channels and eventually giving up and turning off that my screens had did every other time with the GTX 660, it went right to the login screen with the GT 720.
This all leads me to believe that it is an issue with my GTX 660 itself and nothing more, specifically the drivers, I feel. Perhaps the new drivers only half updated? I mean, when it failed the update it specifically did so after obtaining all the files to update, but before it was able to really do any installing. I don't know if that's even possible, but it sounds possible to me. If that isn't it, then I have no real idea what it could be, or what to even do about it in any case. I was thinking I could maybe download the driver update on a flash drive and then run it with the 660 in, but I don't know how to do that, especially if I can't see anything. Or if that is even possible. Maybe it would be easier (and better perhaps?) to just buy a better graphics card? If the fix is simple enough, I'd be all for just fixing it and using it for a while longer, but if that isn't possible and/or would be simplier/more effective to just buy a better one, I'd like to know.
