Cluttermagnet Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 Hey, guys-Today I need a little help myself. I think my video card died in my 1.6GHz P4 box. Luckily I have my sister's 2.4GHz P4 box here at the moment. I'm weighing the risk of possibly trying the video card from the 2.4GHz box in my 1.6GHz to confirm that is really the trouble. If there happened to be a power supply failure that caused the problem, I could end up frying the other video card. Probably not likely, though.So far, I think it could also be memory or MB problems, per the writeup in Langa's latest Plus newsletter, but I tried starting up the computer with no RAM, then only one stick at a time; also disconnecting all drives and putting them back on their cables one by one, etc. Not sure but I may have ruled out those items.When the computer video died, I was watching and closing down a couple of utilities and had just disconnected from dialup- generally getting ready to do a reboot- and then the last thing I saw, as best I remember, was some screen still in color and then a string of green " | " vertical bars appeared across the bottom of the screen. Something I have definitely never seen before. Reminded me of those old green screen monochrome terminals. Then nothing. Power up causes the HDD light to come on for about a minute, then goes out again. No beeps from MB- I think that a single short beep may be right during a normal boot. (I did hear some beeps when testing the MB with no RAM) The Power switch will not switch it back off- have to unplug. The Reset button does seem to work, and causes the ~1 minute of HDD activity each time it is pressed. Repeated Ctrl+Alt+Del has no effect, but I doubt it is even getting through POST anyway. Also, FWIW my computer has been waking up the past 2 weeks or so and usually claiming it has a registry problem it wants to fix. I always Yes'ed through and it did that uneventfully, leaving me as I should be with everything working.I'm still suspecting the video card mostly, but I guess I have not ruled out MB or RAM. I always keep my registry in reasonably good shape, HD defragged, run current AV and firewall, etc. No reason to suspect any outside source for this problem. I'm about to get brave and try a known-good video card from this working box, but I'm not in such a hurry I have to do that today. I'd be very interested in hearing your suggestions as to what tests to try to narrow it down with.My system is a Via P4XB-S MB, 1.6GHz P4, 2x256M DDR 226 Ram, 40G HD. Monitor is a Mag 770FS which self tests and is showing the correct results window, so I do not suspect monitor problems at all. I think the BIOS is an Award, but am not sure- just going by memory. All are just over 1 year old. Oh, the dead (?) video card is a nVidia Geforce4 MX420 64MB AGP VGA. Comments? Should I go ahead and order a new video card? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryB Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 Hey JBIt would seem like the vid card to me...My thinking , if it wa the power supply you'd be seeing other problems..I think you have probably made RAM a non-issues with the checks...Maybe check your vid card in your sisters computer?if it happens there...Vid card most likely..if not maybe Motherboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted July 21, 2003 Author Share Posted July 21, 2003 Hey JBIt would seem like the vid card to me...My thinking , if it wa the power supply you'd be seeing other problems..I think you have probably made RAM a non-issues with the checks...Maybe check your vid card in your sisters computer?if it happens there...Vid card most likely..if not maybe Motherboard.Good idea, BarryB-That sounds a lot safer, trying suspected dud video card in known good computer. I think I will do that at some point in the next day. Yep, I don't think I can rule out MB just yet. In fact, the article in the latest Langa Plus newsletter has a tech claiming that he finds it to be most often RAM, then MB, and only less often is lack of video due to a failed video card. At least that's how he sees it, based on fixing around 300 boxes over the years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryB Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 I would also maybe just connect the monitor to check...I had a couple of cable failures that has close to the same results....(even though monitor passed self check) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nlinecomputers Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 I would tend to think video card as well but your comments about the Registry are very odd. I can't really see how a video card problem would cause the registry to misfire on you. That usually implies hard drive problems. OTOH a shorted card might cause all sorts of voltage problems in the system.I would move the card to a known good unit. Then I'd move a known good video card in the unit. Then I'd replace the power supply next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted July 21, 2003 Author Share Posted July 21, 2003 I would also maybe just connect the monitor to check...I had a couple of cable failures that has close to the same results....(even though monitor passed self check)Great idea-Easy to do and I will try that late today. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted July 21, 2003 Author Share Posted July 21, 2003 I would tend to think video card as well but your comments about the Registry are very odd. I can't really see how a video card problem would cause the registry to misfire on you. That usually implies hard drive problems. OTOH a shorted card might cause all sorts of voltage problems in the system.I would move the card to a known good unit. Then I'd move a known good video card in the unit. Then I'd replace the power supply next.You're making good sense, nline. Your 'order of battle' sounds just about right. I will wince as I turn the power on- in case of any on-card shorts, I will just hope that the power supply designers did their job right and put a good, workable current limit on each output. We shall see... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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