Packed with irony: A ROCK fixed my video card (Ideas?) - Yes I'm serious!

[Yeti101]

Alright guys, well yesterday while surfing some random site, my computer just randomly shut off. My feet were not anywhere near my case, so the source of the problem was ambiguous to me.

After I tried restarting my MB, I opened up my case, checked all my PSU/IDE connections, and the speaker/LED connections. Everything checked out, after that I figured it must be video related. Thus, I figured my Video card must have gotten loose, or something. So, after putting a little wait to make sure it was completely in, my CD rom started searching for about half a second, when I let the pressure off, it stopped.

Anyway, after about a hour of klutzing around, I jimmy rigged a flat surface and balanced a ~10 lbs. rock on my video card to keep pressure, everything works fine now. But my real question is: What went wrong, and how would I go about getting it fixed?

Thanks,
Yeti

 

[Killrose]

Serious?

If you are, you might pull the card and take pencil eraser and rub the AGP contacts on the video card clean. The light abrasive of the pencil eraser will clean the contacts without removeing the plating.

Then i would inspect the AGP slot itself with a flashlight or something to make sure there is not any debris in the slot that might be elevating the card or getting between contacts of the slot/video card.

I don't recommend pressing on the edge of the card while it's powered up. I killed an Ati 8500 that way and my comp was'nt even on, but had just been powered down.

 

[Yeti101]

Awesome, thanks for the help!
and yes, I'm very serious.

The thing is, now that I got my comp working, I'm scared to try something else... The rock is the perfect weight, I tried the rock once, but I just need the resting of my fingers to keep it going... but, I guess the new position of the rock kept it in perfect weight.

Later today, I'll try to eraser thing, and inspect the AGP slot like you mentioned.
(Everything seems to be fine with the weight, though. There hasn't been any problems and I've been running it like this for over a day now. If the pencil/inspect technique doesn't work, I'll probably be forced to keep the rock idea going (I'm trying to hold this PC out until the R400 and the NV35), and if I do loose the card, it isn't a MAJOR loss, it's only a GeForce 2 MX 400, but it's very essential to me until I construct my new computer.

Thanks again, any other ideas are welcomed and greatly appreciated.

~Yeti

 

[Yeti101]

Ah crap... You were right, my computer just froze out... For a second there was a little red in the center, and then I got the original problem I had when it first randomly lost the connection.

So, first thing I did was do the pencil trick, then I looked in the AGP slot with a magnifying glass and a flash light (It was perfectly clear, not even dust was in it). So, I put it back in not expecting anything... and, I didn't get anything.
I just re positioned the rock, and here I am. I'm starting to get frustrated.

~Yeti

 

[Yeti101]

Just got some good news, my friend has a VooDoo5 I can substitute, and he thinks I may have short circuited my AGP slot somehow, is this a likely possibility?

Thanks again,
~Yeti

 

[Tummy]

it sounds more like you have a broken trace somewhere, and that the weight of the rock is putting enough pressure to warp it just enough so that the traces are reconnected... at least to me it does

 

[Peter D]

if i ever have problems like that, i know what to do now! X'D

 

[BCskunk]

Originally posted by: Tummy
it sounds more like you have a broken trace somewhere, and that the weight of the rock is putting enough pressure to warp it just enough so that the traces are reconnected... at least to me it does

i 2nd that

 

[gil11542]

Might try taking out the motherboard and setting it on a piece of cardboard, them remove everything but the needed stuff like RAM,Vid card, and maybe HDD, might be a short somewhere. I hade a board that you couldnt use one of the holes for a screw had to use a plastic support. While you have the MOBO out you can also inspect it well for burnt or bad contacts or possible scratches or breaks in the TRACES. G/L