Troubleshooting Issues with a Used Nvidia 3060 Laptop GPU: A Personal Journey

As an IT professional, I pride myself on my problem-solving skills. However, I recently found myself in a perplexing situation that left me scratching my head—an issue with my recently purchased used laptop, equipped with an Nvidia 3060 GPU.

For the first two weeks, everything was running smoothly. The laptop performed admirably during that time, providing the power I needed for my tasks. However, a few days ago, the GPU abruptly stopped functioning. Naturally, I set to work diagnosing the problem.

Here’s the checklist of actions I undertook to troubleshoot this anomaly:

1. Driver Updates: I began by reinstalling the graphics drivers, hoping this would resolve any conflicts.
2. BIOS Adjustments: I checked for and installed any available BIOS updates, believing this could potentially enhance compatibility and performance.
3. Rollback Attempts: In an effort to stabilize the setup, I reverted both BIOS and Windows updates to previous versions, but to no avail.
4. Driver Variations: I not only uninstalled the drivers but also experimented with older versions, thinking that perhaps the latest updates had introduced unforeseen issues.
5. Windows Reinstallation: In a last-ditch effort, I decided to reinstall Windows entirely, followed by an attempt to downgrade to an earlier version.

Despite all this work, the graphics card still appears in Device Manager without any issues; however, it is not being recognized by other applications. This has led me to a bit of a standstill, as I ponder my next move.

I’m appealing to the tech community for assistance—if anyone has encountered a similar predicament or has potential solutions, I would greatly appreciate your insights. Your expertise could be the key to resolving this challenge!

Let’s hopefully find a way to breathe new life into this machine. Thank you for your support!