Well, during a gaming session last night my PC froze up. No keyboard input was registering so I had no option but to use the manual reset button. It booted back up okay, but on trying to play again it froze up again, but much faster this time, and on having to use the manual reset button again I noticed that this time my BIOS screens were covered in lines of dots, and the only way I can get Windows to boot is in safe mode. So, I think my graphics card is pretty much dead.

Now this is an old PC. It was 7 years old in December and this has been its first failure. It is an old architecture, however.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @3.16GHz
4GB DDR2 RAM
XFX GTX260 Black Edition
1TB Seagate Barracuda hard drive (approx. 70% full)
Windows Vista Ultimate x64

Now, firstly, it is likely that I'm correct in my assumption that the graphics card has had it? Secondly, considering how old the PC is, should I look at getting a cheap graphics card to keep it ticking over for now to give me time to research a new PC build, or go straight in for a new PC?

I've heard that there are new PC technologies coming in that are worth waiting for, but I'm also conscious that I've not kept myself up to date on the current PC architecture so I'm at a bit of a loss as to which components go well together.

If I go with the cheap graphics card option to keep it going, what would be suggested for my other PC specs?

And lastly, if and when I get a new PC (as I will have to get a new PC at some point anyway, whether it be sooner due to this issue or later if I can keep it ticking over a little while longer) I have concerns that my printer/scanner won't work. It is a Canon PIXMA MP630, and the official Canon site only has drivers for up to Windows 8.1, nothing for Windows 10. Anyone know if this printer/scanner works with Windows 10?

EDIT: Just added a few photos. Apologies on the poor quality but it isn't a great camera on my phone, and the flash shows up on some. Best one is the one with the motherboard start screen where you can see lines of black dots on the white background. The others show grey dots on the black Windows startup, before it just sits on a black screen with white dots, then just a blank screen after that. On getting into the safe mode startup you can just about make out some dark green dots on the safe mode selection screen. Windows does start in safe mode but those dark dots still show up, albeit faintly. These are what artifacts are, right?

Funnily enough, I get that on my PS3 when playing GOW, haven't been able to fix as yet. Probably its the graphics cards - could be HDD going also. I assume you have thoroughly vacuumed inside the machine and made sure the vents are clear of obstruction, heat is one big problem for computers. I would check cpu and gpu temperatures whilst operating, there is software out there to do it, if you have Nvidia I think they have a toolkit to check it. I would check all that first, and if you have a spare HDD try that. However 7 years old, you may be better off just buying a new one.

Oh, and get rid of Vista too, awful operating system. You can pick 7 up for peanuts.

I had a motherboard where the PCIe (or maybe AGP) slot died over time, and that caused problems. The best thing would be to try another graphics card in your PC or your card in another PC.

Regarding whether to upgrade, that depends on how much you're itching to and how much money you have.

Buying a new graphics card would leave you approximately where you were, perhaps a little better off. The only slight worry is motherboard compatibility.

Upgrading depends on how much you want to replace and how powerful you want your PC to be. You can, for example, replace the MB, CPU, RAM and GPU, keep the disk, PSU and case. You could go for a low end Pentium or get a Core i5. Vista is fine. 7 is lightly better, but I've used Vista for years after I had a copy of 7 to install because it functioned fine. (That said, I had 8GB of RAM.)

My concern is the motherboard. Seems that the mobo might be the culprit.

You should test the graphic card on another computer. If the card presents no problems, your problem might be the PCI-e slot. In which case, i'd say go for an upgrade. If the mobo starts to develop problems, those problems tend to cascade.

Vista is dreadful, I would revert to XP rather than use that, hell I would revert to DOS rather than use that. 7 is better, even 8 with metro interface is better. Anyway, we digress.

Yeah, as a 7 year old motherboard it has PCI Express 2.0. Off the top of my head, I think my motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-X48-DS5.

I don't think I'd look at an upgrade, but instead a full rebuild. A 7 year old hard drive is a risk (I've had two hard drive failures in the past, one on my old PC after about 4 or 5 years and one in an original Xbox) so whilst this one is working (and yes, I have managed to keep a backup of all the documents that are important to me), with a new PC I'd only consider using it as an extra storage solution for unimportant stuff, via some external dock or enclosure.

As for how powerful, I'd want it to last and it is primarily for gaming. The specs of my current one were very decent 7 years ago and they have lasted quite well. So yeah, I'd be looking for something with a bit of oomph behind it. Think I'd be looking at around £1500 maximum for a new build. Of course, I'd be keeping my peripherals (monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, headset, printer/scanner if possible).

As for the printer/scanner issue. Having taken another look at the Canon site, they have drivers up to Windows 8.1, but the software itself will run on Windows 10. Well, I don't have a second computer nor another graphics card to test with. I could try putting my graphics card in a different PCI-e slot, though.

Forgot to respond about the printer. Windows 8.1 drivers should work perfectly in 10. (That doesn't necessarily hold true for Windows 7 drivers and earlier.) Considering that you're willing to upgrade and have the money for it, I'd say that making sure what went wrong doesn't matter. There are always new things around the corner, and I don't think it's worth worrying about that. So just buy a new PC.

What's the risk of a bad graphics card killing a PC? Would hate to break a friend's PC too. My closest PC techy friend is about 25 miles away, too, so I don't see him all that often.

Very, very low.

Also, something that might be the culprit, it's the graphic card's fan. If the fan died, you could probably replace it at a service (though the costs might be a bit too high for doing the replacement).

You have to diagnose the problem before you decide on the solution. Otherwise you'll be buying something you didn't need, and every quid can go to a new PC. Get Windows 10 + an AMD card for DirectX 12 compatibility. The R9 300 series is the current. So depending on your budget and needs, an r7 370 or an r9 390x. :P

If your budget is around $1000 you can get a skylake system. This gives you access to the new DDR4 RAM, which has more speeds at lesser power usage. Then you're set for another 7-10 years. Windows 8 drivers should work fine for Windows 10. It'd be more of a problem it only had XP drivers.

From what i recall, Nvidia should release some interesting stuff this year. Same goes for AMD and Intel. But if you can't wait, the stuff that our MaximumBunny posted should be okay for a couple of years.

There is also the quad-channel feature that is present right now only on the Haswell-E platforms. This should be an interesting year for both mainstream and enthusiasts, with a lot of new hardware coming.

They also try to push the large capacity SSD in the mainstream and we might see that at the end of the year.

I'll give my techy friend a call and see if he has any spare GPUs that we can test the issue with.

It is worth noting that my old motherboard has no onboard graphics, so the fact that I can boot into safe mode means that my GPU must still be part working at least, else how would my monitor display anything when it is plugged into it?

I had a new graphics card "die" on me few months ago. Turned out it was a loose power cable. Maybe worth to check if that's simply the case here.

Well, thats why temperature could be an issue. Displaying basic windows its too graphics heavy, it may be that playing the game ramps up the amount of work the gpu is having to do, hence gets to hot and cuts out. But yes, Id be tempted to bin it and get a new system, they are quite cheap depending on what you want.