As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Computer Problem Diagnosis
RT800
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So i don't know very much about computers or how to fix them. Mine's broke. I think it's the video card. I don't really know it's the video card though, which makes me reluctant to buy a replacement.
Describing the symptoms: Watchin' a YouTube video on fullscreen. Screen freezes, audio freezes, computer won't respond to anything. I flick the power switch, turn it back on. Seems normal. Few minutes later, it happens again. Switch-off switch-on, it boots up with scrambled graphics, eventually freezes. I leave it alone for a day hoping it will magically fix itself (haha). It doesn't.
So basically my question is: now what? Should I buy a new graphics card? Could it be something else?
Describing the symptoms: Watchin' a YouTube video on fullscreen. Screen freezes, audio freezes, computer won't respond to anything. I flick the power switch, turn it back on. Seems normal. Few minutes later, it happens again. Switch-off switch-on, it boots up with scrambled graphics, eventually freezes. I leave it alone for a day hoping it will magically fix itself (haha). It doesn't.
So basically my question is: now what? Should I buy a new graphics card? Could it be something else?
RT800 on
0
Posts
Without knowing anything else, you could simply start swapping parts to see if that fixes it.
I don't know much about the computer. I can try to dig up some of the specifics, though the only way I know to find them is to check the computer itself, which won't reliably boot-up.
What little I do remember is that it's 4 gigs of RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo processor... either nVidia GeForce 8600 or 8800 graphics card. Operating system is Windows Vista. I dunno if that helps.
So just pull out the card and see if it stops.
If the same problem shows in Linux then you've confirmed a hardware issue, and then you're pretty much boned. The only conceivable at-home fix would be to clean out the inside of your computer (best way I've found is with canned air). Over time dust just cakes in there and this can bring vital cooling fans to a grinding halt. So if you get those fans clean and they're spinning fine (or you just run GPU-Z and eyeball the temps yourself) and you're still having problems then something's broken. Not necessarily your video card really.
So, start by removing the video card from the equation. If you have nowhere to plug your monitor in after removing the video card, then you don't have an on-board card and you're going to need a spare card to test. Borrow one from a friend. If the video card is innocent of wrongdoing then it's probably either your RAM or the motherboard itself. Borrow the rest of your friend's computer for this testing (maybe cook the friend dinner or something, because this could get a little time-consuming)
EDIT: I once had a power supply die, and as it went it seemed like graphics card problems because my huge power-thirsty 7800gtx wasn't getting enough power. This is probably pretty unusual though, and you should hope it isn't what's happening to you. When power supplies die, they have a nasty habit of taking out other important bits with them.
Unfortunately the motherboard has no on-board video and I don't have access to another video card. The interior and fans were already pretty clean, but I dusted them out with compressed air and a vacuum as best I could anyway. The problem persists.
To better describe exactly what happens: I boot up and everything is normal. I make it to the desktop and a few seconds later blue "static" appears all over the screen on top of the icons and wallpaper. The mouse cursor blips around on the screen (as opposed to a smooth animation) and eventually the whole thing just freezes.
Possibly related, but maybe not: For a few weeks prior to this, the computer would occasionally reset my screen resolution for no apparent reason. For instance, I'd put the computer into power-saving mode at 1024x760 and it'd come back at 800x600 and I'd have to reset it. This happened frequently, but not always.
One thing that has given me pause in blaming the video card entirely is the fact that when the display froze while watching that YouTube video (the entire screen, not just the video), so too did the audio. The freeze happened mid-sentence and the audio repeated continuously. I'm not sure if that would happen if the problem was solely with the video card.
How old is this computer?
If this is to imply that his computer must be really old if his motherboard doesn't have onboard video, that's silly. In the dozens of PCs I've built over the years, I have yet to use a motherboard with onboard video.
From the symptoms described up to now, it's almost certainly a videocard problem. Try uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers, in the hopeful event of them only being corrupted. But it seems like your card finally bit the dust.
I had never seen a motherboard without on-board video. I also don't do much involving high-end gaming rigs.
Probably not very useful though, since I think it's the video card. When you checked your fans, did you check the video card fan? Look at it closely, sometimes they fail without completely stopping. They're spinning, but it's so slow that they aren't really cooling anything. If you try to stop it with your finger on the hub it should resist a bit. When you let go it should spin back up quick with little or no wobble. If you can see the individual blades it's going too slow.