Friday, August 8, 2008

Video Card Problems

I need help. I'm having a hell of a time getting the video card in my desktop to work. A few weeks ago, I tried to turn on my tower. It powered up fine, but the monitor indicated "No Signal" when I turned it on. I unplugged everything and plugged everything back up and it worked fine.

A couple of days ago, I had the same problem again, but this time, unplugging the cables did nothing. I made sure the video card was seated properly, but still, same issue. I took it to my office and had the IT guy look at it. After removing the copious amounts of dust, nothing had changed. Due to some discoloration to the PCB on the card, the IT guy came to the conclusion that the card was probably fried. I should let you know that this card was the stock card in my HP machine, an nVidia GeFoce 7500LE. Well, this was an OEM card, so I couldn't order an exact replacement. I got an nVidia GeForce 8600GT from NewEgg and tried to install it. No luck. I tried every possible combination of driver installation/uninstallation. I tried reseating the card, reseating the RAM, turning off the on board video, everything. I know the computer works fine, because the TV out on the motherboard itself still works, but no matter what, the video card will not work. If someone has a similar problem or has an idea of what I could do, I'd grealty appreciate any advice. I'm about to drop the whole thing off a very, very tall building.

Thanks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I to had this problem with the nVidia GeForce 7500LE.I recently replaced it with nVidia GeForce 9300 GE.It acted a little funky till I updated drivers from NVIDIA.

ffargate

Anonymous said...

Are you sure the video card is fried? Are there evidence of burnt components (not only on pcb)? If there is no evidence of burnt parts, you might want to be sure that it is really a video card problem. Get a working monitor and attach it to the computer. If it works, then you know it is not a video card problem. If it does not work, then it is cetainly a video card issue. Try cleaning the contacts (the part you seat into the motherboard) on the video card by using a regular eraser (yes, the one we used in school to erase pencil markings). If it still does not work, let me know where you plan to throw the unit, I will join you. I have a HP vs17e monitor that has a busted transistor and I could not find a replacement part for it. It seems like a HP part no. 27611 637205 and only HP knows so when something breaks, one has no choice but to throw away a couple of hundred to change the entire unit.Frustrating!!!
Vinnie