A bit of an awkward PROBLEM.

I recently was having problems with my computer shutting down on me unexpectedly. It took me a day to realize the problem, I was overheating, which was never a problem for me before. My brother built the computer a year ago for me, and we tested quite often for overheatting problems, and never had one. I ran at about 45C idle, upwards of 58-60C in full performance. Well, I was shutting down because my CPU was hitting upwards of 95C out of nowhere (though my MB temp. seemed fine at ~50C, and can't temp. my video card).

I didn't run the computer much in the day I fixed it. Cleaned out my heatsink on my CPU with compressed air, cleaned the fans, and got the airflow running fine again. Booted back up the PC and my screen resolution went from 1600x900(I think thats it) to 800x600. I could not change the SETTING any higher. I turned on my probe and was idleing at normal range again. But I can not for the life of meget my resolution back into my previous range. I figured a restart was in order, so I restarted the computer and I get to the WINDOWS loadind screen, then I go black and lose signal on the monitor. The computer is running, and oddly, if I unplug my monitor and plug it back into the same DVI slot, I get my image back, but I still cant change my resolution. My drivers ARE up to date.

So is my card fried? Is it something else? any advice for me? Do i need more detail or information here?

I'm running a evga nvidia 8800gts with a QUAD core 2.4ghz Q6600, 2gb ram, and vista 64.
I have the same card...is the fan still operating on the card ? ?
Did any of the gunk you blasted out wind up in the cards direction ? ?
You may want to try powering down, unhooking all power sources and remove/reseat the card.
Then after doing that do a fresh install of the ORIGINAL drivers that shipped with the card.
Good Luck.The fan seems to be still operational, though I won't lie and I have not completely inspected the fan. I know the card is at least warm to the touch when running, and the fan doesn't seemed "gunked" at all, but I am not entirely sure if it is running properly.

I am unable to access the computer at this very moment, I'm STUCK at work and am really wanting to get home and work on this, so I'll try the remove/reseat as well as everything else people may post here.

I do have a seperate card, I believe a nvidia 6800, from my older computer I could test with eventually to.ok, bit of an oddity.

I have checked and reseated. My fan is fine. I have completely redone my drivers as well, now the weird part.

I opted not to restart after reinstalling the driver, and was happily able to set my display to 1600x1050. I restarted, and got the same mess: Black screen after windows loads, unplug and replug monitor, comes on after a minute, lowest possible settings and no way to set it up. I don't think the card is fried now, since I CAN get to higher settings somehow, but I can't STAY there now.... anyone?and once again, im perplexed.

Out of seemingly nowhere, my computer just restarted itself and ran a checkdisk, found a ton of errors that it never found a day ago, and boom, im fixed. I'll have to see if this STAYS fixed, and im hoping it does.

I guess some odd combination of reseating, rebooting, reinstalling, and random computer fixing... worked. I'll update after another day (or earlier if I crap out again)You may want to DLoad and run the manuf. diagnostics on that HDD available FREE at their site. That drive may have problems...best to know ahead of time.