Back in November I bought a GTX 560 -- got a good deal on it as it was a refurbished one.

Around late March (perhaps not coincidentally, the same week the weather started to get warm) it started acting up. At first I got a couple of random reboots during gameplay. Then I would see weird patterns on the screen, then it started rebooting my computer over and over. I was trying to do some troubleshooting but before I could get anywhere it reached the point where the computer would not complete the boot cycle. So I opened it up and unplugged the power leads to the graphics card. The computer functions just fine using the onboard graphics.

On doing some research I have discovered that my computer's PSU was underpowered for this graphics card. Well, crap! It's a 350W and the minimum for the GTX 560 is 450W. That explains that.

So here are my two questions:

1) Might it be possible that the graphics card will work again when I install a better PSU?

2) Any suggestions for good brands/units that aren't absurdly expensive? I would like to select a new PSU greater than 500W because if this graphics card is toast, the one I'd like to eventually replace it with requires a 500W minimum. This one looked alright and I read that Corsair is a good brand. I welcome opinions and/or other suggestions. http://www.microcenter.com/product/...ar_Power_Supply

3) Are there any other considerations besides the wattage rating that I need to take into account selecting a new power supply?

Thanks in advance. Ugh but I feel old.

Amperage is what matters, not necessarily voltage. However amperage will vary from PSU to PSU, even among those of the same Wattage. This is why card manufacturers might give a broad "450W" recommendation for a card like yours. A card like yours should need at maximum 41A ish. So that means a PSU like this: http://www.microcenter.com/product/...TX_Power_Supply is good enough.

However, it's impossible to tell for sure if your graphics card will work again once you change the PSU. Since you already own the graphics card I'd recommend buying a new PSU anyway. You'll need a new PSU if you have to change GPU anyway. I'd also recommend looking at the card itself to see if it needs to be cleaned. Sometimes heat issues can cause graphical artifacts. Driver issues can as well. So make sure the card is clean, make sure all the fans on the card and in your case spin when they're supposed to and make sure your drivers are okay.

Usually when you're choosing a PSU you should look up reviews for your card online and check the power draw. Yours draws at most 31A according to a review I found online, and that's with a power hungry CPU. So you should technically be able to run the GPU under 100% load with a PSU that gives 31A. However I suggested 41A because that would give you some room for error (about 25%). So when you choose a PSU, calculate your required Amperage, and check if the PSU you're looking at provides atleast that amount on the +12V rail. Brand matters as well. Corsair has okay PSUs in general, as do Seasonic and Silverstone. But read reviews for PSUs as sometimes individual models might be better or worse than average since components might be outsourced.

Oooh, this is such helpful info, @ajaxsirius. Thank you very much for taking the time to explain, I really appreciate it!

I did some further research along the lines you suggested and decided that the card you linked was among the best in my price range for my needs. So I picked it up today and popped it in. The graphics card worked beautifully for about 10-15 minutes, just long enough for me to get excited, and then artifacts galore again. Oh well

But this power supply should work fine when I do get a new one, so there's that.

Did you update your drivers?

You picked up a new graphics card or the PSU?

And, the artifacts are occurring only in game; or in Windows too, using a browser, watching movies, etc?

I bought the PSU that ajax suggested and have been trying to get the current graphics card to function.

The artifacts occur in windows as well.

I had some difficulty with updating the drivers because my PC kept restarting in the middle but finally managed it. Then I got a code 43 error on the graphics card. So I uninstalled the driver and re-installed it, and the graphics card worked for about 10 minutes. Then things went completely nuts with a bunch of weird colors and random ascii characters and lines on the screen, and a loud buzzing noise from the speaker. I had to hard shut down my PC.

Not sure if there is anything else I can try at this point

Take a look at this: https://forums.geforce.com/default/...code-43-error-/

Basically you first download the appropriate drivers for your card and OS (be careful to correctly choose Win7 vs Win8 vs Win10), download the Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) from guru3d.com and the "wushowhide.diagcab" file from the microsoft link in the post.

Then you go offline (to prevent windows from auto-installing the drivers), uninstall the current display drivers, reboot, navigate to the "wushowhide.diagcab" you downloaded and have it ready, go online, and quickly launch "wushowhide.diagcab". Then you launch Window Update to check that the Nvidia driver has NOT been auto-installed (restart process if it has), and then you run DDU. Then you reboot into safe mode and uninstall remaining nvidia drivers and reboot again.

Then lastly you install the new drivers you downloaded from the Nvidia website. Some people have suggested using an older driver (such as 347.09) even if you're on Windows10. I would suggest trying the method above first, and if that doesn't work then try the older driver.