dhadley

Thanks, that's very helpful. I should have mentioned that C: is a 500GB SSD and D: is a 2 TB SSD. The computer came with D: as a 1 TB HDD but I swapped it back when I doubled the RAM. I'll consider costs of upgrades vs new desktop. Thanks again!

My computer has a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB video card. About 10-12 mo. ago I noticed what I originally thought was the computer fan going on high speed more frequently than before. But then I started noticing random display issues: one of my two monitors would go black for a quick second. The fan would go on super high speed when using photo/video editing software or AutoCAD. The random black-outs and fan speed are now happening more frequently, when using a web browser or Office software. So I suspect the video card is failing, but I'm not sure. The monitor that usually blacks out is connected with a HDMI, the other is connected with a DisplayPort. (I just realized I should test that with a different cable, but that doesn't touch the fan issue) I thought I saved a post from the Ask Damien FB group recently about video cards and changes in software requirements, but I can't find it. Does this sound like a video card issue? I'm comfortable replacing that myself, but am not sure what requirements I need to look for. Could you give me some suggestions about what hardware requirements I should be looking for, if you believe this is a video card problem, or what I should otherwise check if it might not be? Thank you. Details about my computer health: I have a PC desktop running windows 10 and Elements 2021. It is 5 years old, and has 32GB of RAM. Its main hard drive has 252GB free out of 500GB. The last time I shut down was last night. I run a cleanup program about once a week.