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My now crippled video card
skybox
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Albatron PC6800GT GeForce 6800GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card
The story goes something like this: I turned on my computer only to hear a strange noise, that sounded very similar to a wire rubbing against a fan, coming from the back of my pc, and to see that it was not posting. I immediately turned it off and tried to find where the noise was coming from. I did notice a slight odor coming from my power supply that smelled like burning dust. I unplugged it for a few hours, then came back to give it another try. To my surprise, it posted and booted into windows fine - no smell from the power supply; nothing. When I logged in, I got a message from NVidia saying that the video card was not receiving sufficient power, and will be lowering its performance for stability reasons.
I've messed with power supplies long enough to know that, if you think there's a possibility of it going bad, it's better to replace it to be safe. I hoped this would change my video card situation, but no luck.
I have attempted to present my problem to Albatron a couple of times, but they haven't responded to any of messages.
My question to the faithful PA public is, is there anything I can try to do to repair my injured video card? I'm getting 30 fps out of most modern games, at the max. Funds are a little limited at the moment, so I'm prepared to whip out the soldering iron, if necessary. At this point I don't see how it could get much worse. If all else fails, I could fall back to my on-board gpu until I can afford something better.
Note: I only included the video card information as I only saw it as being relevant. I don't remember the manufacturer of my old power supply, but I do remember that it wasn't something cheap - at least 600w, costing me about $120. If needed, I can dig up the box when I get home.
The story goes something like this: I turned on my computer only to hear a strange noise, that sounded very similar to a wire rubbing against a fan, coming from the back of my pc, and to see that it was not posting. I immediately turned it off and tried to find where the noise was coming from. I did notice a slight odor coming from my power supply that smelled like burning dust. I unplugged it for a few hours, then came back to give it another try. To my surprise, it posted and booted into windows fine - no smell from the power supply; nothing. When I logged in, I got a message from NVidia saying that the video card was not receiving sufficient power, and will be lowering its performance for stability reasons.
I've messed with power supplies long enough to know that, if you think there's a possibility of it going bad, it's better to replace it to be safe. I hoped this would change my video card situation, but no luck.
I have attempted to present my problem to Albatron a couple of times, but they haven't responded to any of messages.
My question to the faithful PA public is, is there anything I can try to do to repair my injured video card? I'm getting 30 fps out of most modern games, at the max. Funds are a little limited at the moment, so I'm prepared to whip out the soldering iron, if necessary. At this point I don't see how it could get much worse. If all else fails, I could fall back to my on-board gpu until I can afford something better.
Note: I only included the video card information as I only saw it as being relevant. I don't remember the manufacturer of my old power supply, but I do remember that it wasn't something cheap - at least 600w, costing me about $120. If needed, I can dig up the box when I get home.
skybox on
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Just in case you didn't know this, you want get all of your hardware drivers before you reinstall windows, and then once you've got windows up and running, before doing ANYTHING ELSE, install the chipset drivers, the video card drivers, the network card drivers, then update windows. After that, I like to install and update spybot, immunize, and then install your sound card drivers and anything else you need. There is no reason to actually run spybot at this point, but the immunization is a must.
Electricity: Will the voltage regulators have the same visual problems as a capacitor if they've gone bad? And, yes, I did replace the psu with a similar model. Same brand, but more updated - I really enjoy the X-Connect feature of it.
Fresh: I'm not questioning your knowledge, and I certainly appreciate your help and advice, but I am a bit concerned. All of that seems like a lot of work for something that, to me, appears to be a physical problem. While I'm not certain, my first guess is that, when my previous psu went out, it somehow sent a charge through all of my components, or maybe just the video card, and the supplemental power connection took the biggest hit. If you're certain that all of these troubleshooting techniques could lead to my solution, I'll give them a try without hesitation. Let me know what you think.
Was this light on the mobo or the graphics card? Try to find this light, and turn on the PC. If the light doesn't come on, then you're not getting voltage to that piece of your computer. You'll have to replace it most likely.