Think my video card died, questions

[Russ Smith]

So last night I went to use my desktop, monitor was powered off but PC was on. I turned on monitor but could not get display, kept saying no signal, and then going into power save. I rebooted 3 times, never got a display. Tried again this morning, nothing.

I unhooked the monitor and hooked it up to the laptop in the other room, rebooted, monitor works. I figured out how to switch the laptop to use both displays so the monitor is definitely good.

I'm ASSUMING it's just the video card since the computer seems to boot up but of course since there's no display I can't be certain.

Is it as simple as open computer, pull out video card, go to Fry's and buy similar card? My concern is if there's any need to load drivers for a new card how would I do that not being able to see any display to know what's happening?

I tried googling and it seems to imply that the found hardware wizard will come on and then if it requires drivers to be installed it will prompt you. So does that mean changing out a bad card for a good card will automatically restore the signal so I can see that message?

Any smart suggestions on how to check if it is the video card sinec you can't see a display at all? I think the computer boots but can't be sure since I can't see anything.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

Pull the video card and go back to the onboard vga connection. If that works - your card is bad. Get a new card and throw it in and it should work...be recognized and search for drivers if needed, etc.

 

[Russ Smith]

Pull the video card and go back to the onboard vga connection. If that works - your card is bad. Get a new card and throw it in and it should work...be recognized and search for drivers if needed, etc.

Thanks, so if I'm seeing correctly the built in VGA is a different connector.

The card I think is bad has 15 pins 5 per row female and the connector is male 15 pins 3 rows of 5. THere are 2 unused ports on the back one is a similar size but it has only 2 rows of pins and it's male like the connector. the other one is much longer and has 2 rows, more pins and it's female. So I assume I would need an adapter.

My dad seems to think he has another video card(he built this PC) so if that's the case I may not need to buy one, but I think I should get the adapter anyways so if it happens again I can hook up the monitor to the built in one.

I just hope it is the video card.

 

[Russ Smith]

Thanks for the help BIM it turned out to be an interesting situation.

My dad had a spare card that he had picked up at Frys on closeout so he brought that over as we were all going to a BBQ later in the day. It booted right up and we loaded the drivers and it worked fine.

The interesting thing is 4-5 times in the last 6-8 months we've heard a loud bang in the room. The first time I thought it was a breaker tripping, sounded like that. Next time I thought it was something falling off a shelf, we never quite figured out the sound.

So when I pulled out the old video card we discovered the built in fan was seized, and of the roughly 12 capacitors on the board, FIVE of them had overheated and burst so the cap was broken! So the loud bang we'd heard periodically was the capacitors bursting when they overheated.

PRetty amazing it worked that long with several capacitors burst like that.