Fried vid card or what?

[Max]

Went to turn on my 5 yr old home build this morning. It spooled up, I heard the Windows 7 "chime music" but nothing was happening on my monitor.

The monitor works...tested via my laptop.

The home build is running a Nvid 9800 GTX+...about 4 years old. My suspicion is the card died but wanted feedback from you folks in case there might be another culprit.

The only anomaly...when I turned on the computer, the fans (Antec 900 case) seemed to be  whirling a bit louder than normal.

Ideas?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Went to turn on my 5 yr old home build this morning. It spooled up, I heard the Windows 7 "chime music" but nothing was happening on my monitor.

The monitor works...tested via my laptop.

The home build is running a Nvid 9800 GTX+...about 4 years old. My suspicion is the card died but wanted feedback from you folks in case there might be another culprit.

The only anomaly...when I turned on the computer, the fans (Antec 900 case) seemed to be  whirling a bit louder than normal.

Ideas?

Check all connections, push your graphcis card to make sure its seated properly. If those won't help you may have a dead graphics card.

On the other hand having your fans whirl louder at startup may indicate a problem with your power supply. If your power supply can't supply enough voltage to your graphics card your screen will remain blank even though the computer boots.

[Max]

Thanks. I'll check the connections.

The PS is a PC Power & Cooling 610 w Continuous...recommended back in the day by Skuzzy. Never had any indication of a problem until now. Would the PS fail between one shut down to the following startup?

[Max]

I checked the card seat, seemed fine. Did a thorough air cleaning of the guts. Rebooted on an analog monitor and got a screen. Reattached the flat panel, rebooted again and all's well. Dumb luck?

Given a 5 yr old power supply, mobo, CPU and vid card, I'm guessing a re-build is in order. Suggestions for those components? MY HD is 6 months old.

Thanks 

[Bizman]

Would the PS fail between one shut down to the following startup?

Usually computers fail between one shutdown and the next startup.

To your original question, a fried video card usually doesn't even let Windows start. Yet you said you could hear the Win7 chime which indicates the computer was starting up normally, only without picture. So the culprit may have been either a failing or loose cable, wrong connector (built-in instead of the real one) or a failing connector in an otherwise good video card (haven't actually seen one but it's possible). A loose cable is what I've seen most. Once it was the power cable which looked totally OK but was half an inch loose. The connector gap was so tight that the cable was hanging by the rubber! And another time the customer had stripped all panels off the case for rebuilding and we couldn't get the computer to boot because the skeleton of the case was so soft it let the video card bend off the slot.

[Rich46yo]

Video cables can be kinda heavy and over time can loosen your video card seat. It may not seem possible but over 5 years you can move the computer and screens enough, vibrations from traffic, all kinda things can help loosen. Thats why cleaning and reseating is always the first option. Im glad yours worked out.

[100Coogn]

It wouldn't hurt to reseat the video card and your RAM.  I've had that happen a few times.

Coogan

[doc1kelley]

I think the most obvious thing was the thorough cleaning!  Dust and animal dander can clog everything up.  I usually take my system out into the garage and use a small air compressor and blow all that crap out the garage door about twice a year.  You wouldn't believe just how much can get in there in a short period of time.

All the Best...

   Jay

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I think the most obvious thing was the thorough cleaning!  Dust and animal dander can clog everything up.  I usually take my system out into the garage and use a small air compressor and blow all that crap out the garage door about twice a year.  You wouldn't believe just how much can get in there in a short period of time.

All the Best...

   Jay

Kinda makes you feel sad towards people who do not own a compressor. Imagine how gunked up their computers are.

[doc1kelley]

Kinda makes you feel sad towards people who do not own a compressor. Imagine how gunked up their computers are.

Well yeah but when you think about the price of the compressed air cans for computer cleaning a cheap small air-compresser saves ya quite a bit of money.  I don't know why but every frigging thing in the atmosphere seems to collect on computer parts and nothing else. :-)


All the Best...

    Jay

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Well yeah but when you think about the price of the compressed air cans for computer cleaning a cheap small air-compresser saves ya quite a bit of money.  I don't know why but every frigging thing in the atmosphere seems to collect on computer parts and nothing else. :-)


All the Best...

    Jay

The 'air cans' can't produce enough air flow to really clean up the computer. I've tried this, first blowing with a can and then taking it to the compressor. It's like not using the can at all. Especially deep crevices inside the power supply and CPU heatsink can be hard to reach without proper airflow.

[Bizman]

There's cans and there's cans. I have been carrying one in my "doctor's suitcase" for a decade and I've noticed huge - and I really mean HUGE - differences in various brands. Some have been weak like a human blow, going down to a breath strength level halfways of the can. Then there's those which start promisingly but get cold and weak even with short bursts when the can is less than half full. The ones I currently use have the same amount of air by weight in a can half the size by volume than the previous ones. Inflammable just in case, although they cost more. I find them strong enough for cleaning, yet gentle enough for not blowing any components off.