Video Card dead, mobo dying, or what?

[WhipperSnapper]

My wife went to boot up her computer and when Windows loaded, it was just a blank screen. The POST screen is fuzzy and displays various ASCII block artifacts sometimes and the loading Windows screen also seems as though parts of the image are descynced.

Is the video card the culprit? Or could the mobo itself be giving out?

Mobo is almost 10 years old. Video card is an 8800 GT that was added Dec 2007 and has seen light use.

It's a dual core Socket 939 Opteron system. Perhaps it's just time to scrap it and get her something more modern, but she really doesn't use the computer for much other than Internet surfing.

 

[richierich1212]

8800GT is probably dying.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

My wife went to boot up her computer and when Windows loaded, it was just a blank screen. The POST screen is fuzzy and displays various ASCII block artifacts sometimes and the loading Windows screen also seems as though parts of the image are descynced.

Is the video card the culprit? Or could the mobo itself be giving out?

Sounds like the graphics card is giving up. Either that, or a heat issue.

Mobo is almost 10 years old. Video card is an 8800 GT that was added Dec 2007 and has seen light use.

It's a dual core Socket 939 Opteron system. Perhaps it's just time to scrap it and get her something more modern, but she really doesn't use the computer for much other than Internet surfing.

If you have a spare card laying about, you can quickly see if that's the issue. But I wouldn't invest anything in such a system. If it fails get her a nice Haswell Celeron (G3258) or Skylake Pentium (G4400). Cheap, will do everything asked of it, and use far less power doing it.

 

[squirrel dog]

you could remove the 8800 gt , give it a good cleaning and re apply thermal grease to the gpu , after removing the old grease , same for cpu .

 

[WhipperSnapper]

A friend gave me a Visiontek 5450 to try, and when I put in, the system won't even POST at all. I think I seated the video card correctly as I tried it twice. I don't know if the Visiontek 5450 itself is dead, or what, but it doesn't seem good.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

A friend gave me a Visiontek 5450 to try, and when I put in, the system won't even POST at all. I think I seated the video card correctly as I tried it twice. I don't know if the Visiontek 5450 itself is dead, or what, but it doesn't seem good.

Do fans power on? If no, your PSU is either dead or close to it. If yes, you're properly looking at a dead mainboard. Or both things at once.

I wouldn't bother trying to repair, unless I had compatible spares laying about. Such a system is not worth anything you spend on it.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Do fans power on? If no, your PSU is either dead or close to it. If yes, you're properly looking at a dead mainboard. Or both things at once.

I wouldn't bother trying to repair, unless I had compatible spares laying about. Such a system is not worth anything you spend on it.

The fans and stuff work just fine. Maybe the ATI 5450 was just a bad card or something because when I popped the 8800 GT back in, I was able to post and get into Windows (with screen artifacts, of course).

 

[Arachnotronic]

Upgrade that PC...

CPU: Pentium G4400 - $65 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117625

Mobo: ASRock H110M-HDV - $52 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157648)

RAM: 2x4GB G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4-2133 - $45 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0231882&cm_re=8gb_ddr4-_-20-231-882-_-Product)

Total: ~$162.

You can probably do a whole new system build, but if you wanna do it cheaply just replace mobo + CPU + RAM and keep everything else (storage, optical, case, etc.)

 

[Insert_Nickname]

The fans and stuff work just fine. Maybe the ATI 5450 was just a bad card or something because when I popped the 8800 GT back in, I was able to post and get into Windows (with screen artifacts, of course).

Incompatible card perhaps...? First generation PCIe boards can be picky.

Upgrade that PC...

CPU: Pentium G4400 - $65 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117625

Mobo: ASRock H110M-HDV - $52 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157648)

RAM: 2x4GB G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4-2133 - $45 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0231882&cm_re=8gb_ddr4-_-20-231-882-_-Product)

Total: ~$162.

You can probably do a whole new system build, but if you wanna do it cheaply just replace mobo + CPU + RAM and keep everything else (storage, optical, case, etc.)

This^^

You might want to add a new PSU. 10+ years old is stretching things a bit, and it might not be compatible with a new board.

 

[pontifex]

stick the video card in the oven
seriously, i did this and it saved my video card.

http://lifehacker.com/5823227/save-dying-video-cards-with-a-quick-bake-in-the-oven