Hey everyone,

I’ve got a bunch of weird stuff happening with my computer (both in Linux Mint and Windows 10) and hoping you could help me figure out if it’s a software issue or if it’s a hardware issue then which component is borked.

The fact that both systems are having issues is making me think it’s a hardware issue? Both OS’s are on different drives, not dual booting from the same disk.

Linux issues:

Distro: Mint 20.2

Kernel: 5.4.0-202-generic

CPU: Intel i7-7700k

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

Memory: 16GB

It started with Firefox crashing randomly and now the display is forced at a weird resolution and it doesn’t recognize the second attached screen. It has no option to change resolution in GUI and the xrandr -q output doesn’t list any devices and talks about failing to get size of gamma for output default. I’m trying some stack overflow and arch wiki guides about adding manual selections to xrandr but nothing is working. Firefox seems to be stable now but unsure. I tried NVIDIA guides about making sure blacklist file doesn’t exist and forcing non-wayland sessions but that didn’t work; the NVIDIA X Server Settings GUI also boots completely blank.

xrandr output:

{22:20}-{xxx}-{~}$: xrandr -q --verbose xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default Screen 0: minimum 1024 x 768, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1024 x 768 default connected primary 1024x768+0+0 (0x528) normal (normal) 0mm x 0mm Identifier: 0x527 Timestamp: 45214 Subpixel: unknown Clones: CRTC: 0 CRTCs: 0 Transform: 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 filter: _MUTTER_PRESENTATION_OUTPUT: 0 non-desktop: 0 supported: 0, 1 1024x768 (0x528) 59.769MHz *current h: width 1024 start 0 end 0 total 1024 skew 0 clock 58.37KHz v: height 768 start 0 end 0 total 768 clock 76.00Hz 1920x1080_60.00 (0x545) 173.000MHz -HSync +VSync h: width 1920 start 2048 end 2248 total 2576 skew 0 clock 67.16KHz v: height 1080 start 1083 end 1088 total 1120 clock 59.96Hz

I do have timeshift backups for a few days ago but seeing as I’m not sure if this may be hardware related I’m not sure whether to go down that path.

Windows 10 issues:

Before today it went BSOD pretty quickly after logging in (safemode works fine) with errors such as ‘kmode exception not handled’ and ‘bad pool caller’. I’ve since updated the nvidia drivers by booting in safemode and now the screen is black with the bottom menu flickering in and out (with no apps, just the start button) on both screens.

It seems like the issue is to do with the graphics card but, again, I’m not sure if it’s something I can fix by typing a magic spell or two, or if I need to buy a new card.

Appreciate any responses, thanks!