Fried video card... or worse?

[jack_cheese]

Hi all,

I have a troubling problem, and I was hoping to try and get some more information before I take action. I'll try to be as specific as possible but I'm not particularly tech-savvy so please excuse me if I leave anything out.

Here's the deal...

My basic system specs are:

Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz
1GB RAM
120 GB HDD
GeForce 4 TI 4600
Windows XP Home

I was using my computer yesterday, and with no warning the screen began to fill with large white lo-res blocks. The game I was running shut down, and the system basically crashed. It's the first time I'd seen XP fully crash since I've had the computer (about four months). I'd seen something similar with my old computer though (under Windows 98) so I thought no problem, and rebooted.

But the "white chunks" problem reappeared IMMEDIATELY - before the computer even managed to boot into Windows. The machine then failed to boot into Windows and froze with these large white blocks on a blank screen.

So I rebooted using safe mode and managed to get into Windows this time. Unfortunately the screen was covered with small (about 5x5 pixels) black and white dots, making the screen quite unreadable. As I moved windows around, the dots multiplied until I couldn't read anything. I managed to do a system restore (for what that's worth) but it didn't help. FYI the dots are overlaying the whole screen, that is, the mouse pointer appears under the dots and is obscured by them too.

Next step, I tried another video card. I pulled the GeForce card and replaced it with my old Matrox G400. But when I hit the power switch to restart the computer, nothing happened at all. It was completely dead, except for the fact that the red light at the bottom of my optical mouse was now flashing on and off at regular intervals.

So I pull the Matrox card and put the GeForce back in. The computer starts (only in safe mode), but with the same problem as before.

That's where I am now. I need to contact the manufacturer, but I 'd prefer to simply get a replacement video card than have to ship the whole damn thing back. But is it just the video card, or is something else fried?

A couple of points of interest... I'd been leaving my computer on for days at a time, but I don't think that's a problem. It used to be damn noisy though, and I think that was caused mostly by the fan on the GeForce. But now it runs extremely quietly, and while I can't tell whether the fan is spinning or not, I suspect it might have stopped working. Could this problem have been caused by the card overheating?

Also, I was running non-standard drivers, but I wasn't overclocking the video card or the processor.

Thanks in advance if anyone has any insight into this problem. I really hope it's just the video card and not something else.

Jack

[alex zorrilla]

Hi, Jack.

Yeah, I would say that graphics card failure is a very distinct possibilty here, especially since the display is already bad before you boot into Windows.

It is possible that the graphics card overheating caused this problem, but that is not the only reason it could have happened. In any case, whatever caused it does not seem to be your fault. Even if a bad fan caused the graphics card to die, they should put better fans on the boards (seriously!).

One thing you may look out for is that some newer graphics card require an external power connection (like the kind that would ordinarily go to a floppy drive or hard drive). Check to see whether your graphics card requires one of these connections. If it does, make sure it is plugged in securely.

The most likely reason the Matrox G400 did not work is because of its age. Many newer motherboards are AGP 3.0 compliant. In addition to supporting AGP 8x, it also means that they do not support the older AGP voltage of 3.3V that was used for AGP 1x/2x cards. Chances are, your Matrox G400 is one of those cards that will no longer work with these newer motherboards.

If you do talk to the tech support people, I would not mention the fact that you tried out the G400. I do not think you caused any harm, but they may think otherwise. If you can find or borrow an AGP card that supports AGP 4x, then use that to test out your computer.

Hope this helps.

--Alex

[jack_cheese]

That's a huge help. I've posted this question on a few other boards with varying degrees of success, but your answer would definitely seem to explain why the system did not switch on with the G400 installed.

It was suggested to me elsewhere that a catastrophic video card failure could damage the AGP port on the motherboard. Do you know if this is possible?

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated!

[alex zorrilla]

Hey, Jack.

Catastrophic failure of the graphics card damaging the AGP port on the motherboard? Ehhhh, I suppose it's possible, but I highly doubt that has happened to you.

--Alex

[jack_cheese]

Hi again Alex,

Some more information: my video card does not (at least, I'm pretty sure it doesn't) require an external power source, so I'm ruling that out.

I've checked and the fan does appear to be spinning. However, it is absolutely nowhere near as noisy as it was yesterday. The computer is running almost silently today - it was loud as hell before this problem occured.

I'm thinking that the fan has failed somehow - although it is still running, perhaps it's not running fast enough to keep the GeForce cool, which has caused the card to fail.

Do you know if another fan failure within the case could have caused another component other than the video card to fail which would cause this problem, or does this seem to be entirely video card related? I have two fans at the rear of the case, one on the side, and one on the power supply. As far as I can tell they're all running as they should, but as I say, it's a heck of a lot quieter than it has been previously.

Again, thanks for your input on this - it's most appreciated.

[alex zorrilla]

Hi, Jack.

With as many case fans as you have, you probably have enough room for failure even if two or three or them died. If the computer did overheat in this case, it would probably freeze the computer or crash Windows, but it would be OK if you waited a while for it to cool down.

Another place to look for a fan would be on the CPU. Depending on the design of the computer, though, it may just have a huge heatsink on top of it and depend on the other case cooling to take away the heat. But that would be a place to look. The Pentium 4 is designed to slow down in case the temperature gets to a critical point, though, so you probably would have noticed a major slowdown in the speed of the computer, as opposed to white blocks.

If I recall correctly, some of the NVidia drivers actually control the speed of the graphics card fan on the higher end cards. For example, it will run the fan at a slow speed when running 2D applications, but kick in the fan for 3D. That might only apply to the Geforce FX 5x00 series, though. I don't remember for sure. I am still using a Geforce2.

Out of curiosity, what kind of sound was the fan making before? Whooshing? Whirring? Grinding? etc.?

You could be right about the fan causing the graphics card to fail. Even if it didn't, the card should still be under warranty, so you should get it replaced.

--Alex

[jack_cheese]

Hmm... well, sometimes it would run fairly quietly, and at other times, particularly when I'd left it on for a long time, it would get louder and lounder - a whooshing sound I guess, I wouldn't necessarily call it grinding, but in retrospect it sounded like it might have been running harder than it should have. Since it did this from the day I got it, I assumed that it was supposed to be like that...