I know there's a lot of computer savvy people here and I need some help. I have an HP (yeah I know, first mistake) approx 5 years old. Amd FX-8100 processor. Recently the monitor was going black and a loud fan would run. If I shut it down for a while, it would work normal. I opened the case and removed the GP card and blew the dust out of it and the rest of the machine. All fans are running as they should. It was good for a few weeks and now it's happening again. The graphics card is a Radeon HD 7670. I thought the hard drive may be going bad because it will boot but not show the desktop. Bought a new drive and tried to install it with a new OEM windows 7 DVD in a external usb dvd drive running it from the 2.0 usb on the back of the pc. When I get to the install screen, no drives are showing in the list. The error says there's no signed drivers. I downloaded some drivers from the HP support site and loaded them on a thumb drive. The pc only sees the thumb drive but nothing that I moved to it from my laptop. A watched several youtube vids on this problem but nothing is working. Part of me thinks the graphics card is bad. I did download and update the driver shortly before I had this issue the 2nd time.
I was wondering if the graphics card is used immediately when the pc starts or takes over after the pc boots? So right now I have the black screen of death so they say.