GPU dead?

[Delaios]

So ran into some fairly major issues the last few days with my desktop. First oddity was with a Windows update where I selected the option to update and restart late at night. At first I wanted to wait for it to complete and then do a shutdown, but it was taking a bit too long for my liking and I just went to bed. The next morning I was greeted with a message that the update had failed. When looking in Windows Update however it showed that everything was up to date, it didn't mention anything about any failed updates. However I still had the options to update/shutdown and update/restart. Didn't think much of it and logged into WoW. The PC suddenly rebooted while I was in a heroic dungeon. I logged back into Windows, back into WoW and even made it back into the same dungeon, but got a reboot a few seconds later. Got back into Windows without any issues and decided to look into some crash logs from Windows. The event viewer has 4 entries for a critical error in Kernel-Power (event-id 41, task category 63) in the last week. Regular errors (forgive terminology here because I'm using a Dutch localized version) have got a lot of entries. The most common one is called nvlddmkm, 144 entries with the same time stamp. DistributedCOM has got 107 entries across 2 different event IDs. Googled the nvlddmkm one and it's display related. Took out my current GPU (MSI GTX 770) and it's been booting up just fine. Windows Update is showing no errors or updates (other than an update for the integrated graphics). Can't see any errors in Windows crash logs since I took it out. Could my graphics card be the cause of all these errors and would replacing it be a simple solution? Or is there more going on here?
Last few times I tried to boot up with the graphics card, I got stuck at the part where I have to type in my password. The very last attempt had the usual background for that screen only in the right half of the screen (still the full image, but squished in the right half of the screen. Not sure if that's helpful information or not.

[the boar]

first steps i'll recommend:

1. boot into bios, set graphics to igpu, save and restart.

2. plug monitor into on-board graphics - hopefully this at least lets you get into windows

3. provided the nvidia drivers are the only thing causing issue, use DDU to remove them completely. restart and go to 4.

or

3. if there are still issues, probably just system restore to before you attempted the upgrade is easiest..

4. bios, set graphics back to gpu, save restart, plug monitor back into gpu.

5. let us know what happens!

edit: oh the wall of text caused me some internet-blindness. looks like you already have figured out its fine on the igpu, your grpahics drivers might just be junked up. try the DDU thing ~ http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/...-download.html

if that doesn't help, try system restore to a point you KNOW the graphics card was working fine, so at least that way you can confirm it hasn't just coincidentally had a hardware failure at the same time

[Nasukkin]

It sounds like the failed windows update fucked things up. You can try 'the boar''s suggestion, but I'd lay odds that you'd get a false-positive out of that.

First thing you want to try is performing a system restore. Hopefully you've been keeping restore points before doing windows updates... otherwise, you're looking at a possible Windows re-install.

ALTERNATIVELY (and you probably want to try this first): uninstall your video drivers and re-install them. If the Windows update was messing with them, then it might just be the case that's all you'd need to repair.

[Delaios]

Managed to do a clean install of windows. The first attempt (using the executable file) failed, but the second attempt worked (using a mounted ISO file). Cleared the video drivers using DDU beforehand and without the graphics card in. Everything booted up fine and ended up with Windows 10.0.15063 build 15063. Succesfully installed 8 updates since then. Decided to try out the graphics card again, but my monitor didn't respond. Hooked the monitor up to the motherboard and it boots up fine. I guess it's safe to say that the graphics card was the issue here?

[Alexeht]

I guess it's safe to say that the graphics card was the issue here?

If you have opportunity then check this card with another PC, I personally only give up on graphic cards when they are no longer recognized in BIOS.