[Slice]

Hey everyone, i'm having a bit of a technical problem with my main computer. Heres the build up to the problem:

Playing WoW and the computer crashes, completly locks up and has to be turned off manually. Restart it, does it again after about 10 minutes. Thought it may be WoW, so I try Counter Strike, happens again. After a little thinking i decided to take it apart and find that the graphics card is covered in dust and muck (bad maintenence on my part) and the fan on the graphics card can't spin, so i come to the conclusion the card must be overheating.

I clean the card out with a very soft fine, never used, paint brush. I was very careful to not do any damage to the card. Plug it back in expecting everything to be fine and i can see the Dell BIOS loading, but its behind parts of white noise and very fuzzy. Then when it gets to the next bit (choosing OS, XP or linux) it becomes completly submerged in white blocks and white noise, little bits of green flashing about.

Have i completly messed up the graphics card? I have tried everything and i can guarentee its in correctly.

Some specs on my computer :

ATI Radeon X1650 PRO powercooler
1GB RAM
200GB HD

Another problem is i cant set it back to the onboard graphics because i cant see anything on the setup page!

[tommyflint]

1. Try connecting a different monitor, i know its unlikely to be the monitor but doing this means we can completely cross of it off the list.

2. Ensure the graphics card is seated correctly, i have seen this happen before because the graphics card was loose.

try those and see what happens

tommyflint

[Slice]

Tried it with a different monitor, same problem. Got me thinking it could be something to do with the lead i am using to connect them so i borrowed my sisters and still got the same problem.

Unplugged it and re-seated it, although it does seem it could go down a little further, still see about an 1/8th of the gold pins, but the side of the case wont let it go down anymore. Has worked like that for about a year with no problems though.

Could this be a driver problem or is that unlikely?

EDIT:

Ok, i decided to remove the fan from the card to see if there was anything building up underneath it and i dont know what to make of this. There is a weird blue soft substance around the graphics processor, kind of like bluetack, and is all a weird black around the chip. I have a gut feeling its toasted...

This post has been edited by Slice: 31 August 2009 - 04:18 PM

[tommyflint]

Yes that sounds to me like you have toasted the card the blue substance is most likely to be some sort of thermal paste.

before you go binning it though, have you got a spare graphics card or can you nick the one from you sisters PC just to check it is the card not a driver issue.

tommyflint

[Slice]

Sisters using onboard graphics unfortunatly, I have an Nvidia Gforce spare but its PCI-express and i only have AGP ..

I think this is a nudge for me to get a new computer..

[Sarge_137]

perhaps it is. I would try another AGP card from someone, maybe borrow from a friend for a day, see if someone you know has spare. I dunno. however a new computer can never hurt : )
Good luck

[tommyflint]

seeing as you motherboard only supports APG then i would predict your PC is kinda getting pretty old anyway as APG is getting kinda out dated
So if you got the cash i would upgrade :0

tommyflint

[syfran]

Have you tried booting up the computer without the card in? most of the time that will switch it back to onboard graphics by itself.