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Video Card gone bad?

413 views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  evil jose 
#1 ·
Ever have one of those days that you wish you had left well enough alone? Well that day is is today for me :( Picked up a couple of 1GB RAM sticks to bring me up to 4GB and a 1.5 TB HD. They came in the mail Thursday but I just got around to installing it today.

So typically whenever I open up a case I take the time to blow out all the dust in there. Installed both of the RAM sticks and mounted the HD. For some reason there was not a spare power cord for the HD so I'll need to pick that up. Closed everything back up and plugged everything back in and powered it up. Start getting a beeping sound and no screen. Unplugged everything and opened the case back up and unplugged the HD and removed the RAM that I had added. Left the case open and plugged all the cords back in and powered it back up. No beeping but my monitor is not waking up.

I have a KVM hooked up with another computer which sits right next to the one I'm working with. Switched to it and the monitor wakes right away. Switched back to the one I'm working on and nothing. Pulled out my flashlight to see if the video card fan is on and it is. Pulled the monitor cable out and reinserted it, nothing. Unplugged everything and moved it to my living room where I have another computer and swapped it out. Nothing. Fuck!

So I'm not sure what to think right now. Video card is powering up and the fan is running on it but I'm not getting anything out. System is a Dell XPS 410 and my Order Details shows it to have a 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS Video Card but I'm looking at it right now and it has ATI written on the card.

Any ideas? Hope this makes sense.
 
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#3 ·
How can I check that though? And how could it have gone bad in a span of 30 minutes. I'm just wondering if something got screwed up when I was blowing out the case :(
 
#4 ·
Take the card out and make sure the connectors are clean and reseat it? You added a harddrive right? unplug it.
 
#7 ·
That's what I'm planning on doing today, pulling the video card and reinstalling it. HD was plugged in but apparently Dell didn't have any extra power cable in the case so I have it unplugged now.

Edit: After a quick Google search this morning the case does have a power cable for the HD but it's missing the blue Dell Data cable.

Note blue cable going to HD on the left.


using the PC air duster?

if so it tends to throw out liquid sometimes and if it touches anything important it can surely mess things up, i lost a hard drive that way.

sounds to me like it could def. be your vid card.
That's exactly why I mentioned it. Although the can says PC friendly I'm hoping it didn't screw up the video card as I did spray the fan on it and the through the heat sinks on the CPU. F*ck!

The power on the video card runs through a rudimentary contact on the PCI slot, so it powering up has no effect on the video card itself, and it's current state of affairs. So, what you're saying is it's not posting, no beeps, etc.

First of all, if it has ATI on the card, you definately didn't get an 8600, that's for sure. That doesn't sound right to me... not sure what happened there.

If the motherboard is not posting, as in, you don't hear a beep it probably isn't the video card. A system will post without a video card, you just won't see anything. I would say you need to troubleshoot some more, but if anything, I would say it's probably something that needs to be reseated, or at worst, the motherboard. If you could bring it by me, and give me a few minutes, I could diagnose it for you. I have all the necessary hardware to troubleshoot it quickly, and I'm pretty familiar with various issues relating to hardware. Hopefully we could figure it out, get that harddrive and ram in there and working properly.
When I first put everything together after adding RAM and the HD it wouldn't post and was beeping (didn't bother to count the beeps at this point). So I removed the RAM and extra new HD and it didn't beep when I powered it on but it would not wake up the monitor. It sounds like it's posting up fine but since I cannot see anything I cannot tell.

Like I said, I'll be pulling out the video card and reinserting it to make sure it didn't somehow get dislodged while I was moving it around (doubtful). The RAM sorta threw me off. I did have the HD plugged in apparently with the power cable but no data cable so I'm wondering if that's what was beeping. I'll have to try booting it up with just the new RAM installed. Losing the video threw me for a curve so I just yanked all of the new stuff out. I'm guessing I can find the SATA Data Cable at Fry's right?

If you can help troubleshooting it later I would appreciate it. It's my main computer and it's driving me nuts having to use the spare one I have in the living room (plus I can't game right now). Incoming PM.
 
#6 ·
The power on the video card runs through a rudimentary contact on the PCI slot, so it powering up has no effect on the video card itself, and it's current state of affairs. So, what you're saying is it's not posting, no beeps, etc.

First of all, if it has ATI on the card, you definately didn't get an 8600, that's for sure. That doesn't sound right to me... not sure what happened there.

If the motherboard is not posting, as in, you don't hear a beep it probably isn't the video card. A system will post without a video card, you just won't see anything. I would say you need to troubleshoot some more, but if anything, I would say it's probably something that needs to be reseated, or at worst, the motherboard. If you could bring it by me, and give me a few minutes, I could diagnose it for you. I have all the necessary hardware to troubleshoot it quickly, and I'm pretty familiar with various issues relating to hardware. Hopefully we could figure it out, get that harddrive and ram in there and working properly.
 
#10 ·
if the monitor has a digital/analog setting (for dvi and vga) make sure it is set correctly.

did you unplug any power connectors on the board? If that is a PCIe card (i believe it is I have the 8800gts) then you will need an extra 4 pin connector from the power supply that plugs directly into the motherboard. Also, the video card might need an extra power cable running into the back of it. usually if the card isn't getting the correct amount of power it will give you a long tone on startup.

the HD missing a SATA cable shouldn't matter. If it's only getting power and no data connection it shouldn't matter. If it was the other way around it probably would.
 
#12 ·
OK, the card does have the extra 4 PIN connector (didn't notice it until I removed the card) and the new card did not. The new card is doing the same thing so I'm at a lost of what it can be. I'm using the DVI adapter for the VGA cable and I'm not even sure how to change that on the monitor but it does work with the other computer I have hooked via a KVM switch. I'm going to go ahead and bypass the KVM switch just in case something funky is going on with it.
 
#15 ·
Thanks to CJ I'm up and running again. Apparently the issue was with my RAM but I'll let him explain for those of you that are interested. I'm just glad to be up and running again.



What's up Taylor! Yup, haven't talked to you in a bit. Incoming PM.
 
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