Solved Graphics issue, and its cause

I've recently had an ever-increasing number of incidents where my graphics signal would quit. They happened more or less at random.

I played with drivers, and did a repair install of Win 11. Nothing made any difference.

I tried clearing the CMOS. On my mid/low end motherboard, that meant opening the case and shorting a couple of pins. (I wish they still provided a 2¢ jumper to do that, but the screwdriver/nailfile of my little Swiss Army Knife was adequate.)

For a lark, I checked the cabling. Turned out that one of the PCI-E auxiliary power connectors to the graphics card hadn't been pushed in far enough to lock, and it had worked itself loose over time. It was losing connection, intermittently. All seems to be well now.

Embarrassing, but I mention it in the off chance that it helps someone else.

@bobkn ,

Had a similar issue. Took me more than 2 weeks to find a defective PCIe cable on my RTX 2070.

With computers, you never know it all. You keep discovering.