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Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin






so question for you guys.

I played on my computer one night and then the next day i turned my monitor on and it was black.
I leave my PC on 24/7 but shut off the monitor... its actually my TV so...

Any thoughts on what might have caused my card to just stop working?
I put an old card in it and the PC is fine so i know its the card but why...?
Its old so i suppose it could have just bit it finally but anything else?

I also tried another P/S with no joy.

Someone suggested drivers may have corrupted but that seems odd to me but i dont know.

thoughts?
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

It could just be your graphics card has burned out or broken. If the monitor and the rest of the PC works then you've at least identified the item at fault. If it was a driver issue it's fairly extreme since another drive still worked.

You could try reinstalling the drivers and then reinstall the drive and see if it picks up, however it might be a long shot.





As its an older computer it sounds like paying to have the card serviced and repaired might not be economically viable

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Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin






thanks overread.
ill probably just replace it...
does anyone repair computer parts anymore?
   
Made in us
Last Remaining Whole C'Tan






Pleasant Valley, Iowa

Generally speaking graphics cards don't get repaired. The two exceptions are a burned out fan (which is user replaceable with the right parts), and blown capacitors (which depends on your skill at sourcing replacement caps and hand with a soldering iron).

9 times out of 10, you will either RMA the card if it's under warranty, or just replace it if it's not. Anything other than those 2 examples above will probably be prohibitively expensive as a card old enough to be out of warranty isn't generally worth much.

Make sure you test that card in another PC before deciding it's dead. Also, I hate to say it, maybe swap out the display cable, maybe sure it's not loose.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
Someone suggested drivers may have corrupted but that seems odd to me but i dont know.

thoughts?


Even if the driver was horribly corrupt, you would still see video output during POST. You clearly didn't or you would have described the problem differently - "It boots into windows and then the screen is black".





This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/24 16:59:24


 lord_blackfang wrote:
Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.

 Flinty wrote:
The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
 
   
Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin






thanks ouze... yeah changed the cable and nothing on post.
interesting suggestion on trying it in another computer. i may do that before throwing it away.
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






Have you tried kicking it?

   
Made in us
The Marine Standing Behind Marneus Calgar





Upstate, New York

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Have you tried kicking it?


"Percussive Maintenance” Please, we are not savages here.

One thing to check if it looks like a hardware issue to to pull it out, blow some canned air over everything, and plug it back in and make sure everything is tight. Sometimes it’s a simple as a wire got loose over time, or the connection wiggled free. Re-setting/plugging it might help.

Additionally, try plugging it into a different slot on the motherboard. Depending on the card/board might not be viable, but it’s another thing to double check. Could be the card is fine, but the slot is dead. Although trying the card in another computer if you have one will also give you some of the same information.


   
Made in gb
[DCM]
Fireknife Shas'el





Leicester

Also, does the temporary replacement use the dedicated GPU power supply? If not, it could be worth checking that’s working.

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 Zed wrote:
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Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut




After trying the old card, have you tried the new (supposedly broken card) again? Maybe the cables was just loose (had that happen on the monitor side once). Switching to an old card could mean you changed and/or plugged in the cables again (thus solving the issue) but if you don't try the new one again you would overlook that solution and still assume it's broken when it might have been just the cable.

Anything else would most probably mean you'd need a new GPU and right now supplies seem to be rather limited and what you can get tends to be very expensive on top of that. I'd try to be 100% sure that your GPU is really broken and that it wasn't randomly just the cable.
   
Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin






thank you all.

while i did not kick it i did berate it extensively. i tried to shame it in to working but alas... no luck.

i tried this... reseat, replace with the old card in the same slot, replace with the bad card in the same slot, replace with the old card in the same slot.

the suspect bad card never worked while the old one worked fine.

the two cards do use different power connections but i also tried a different 800w supply.

i may try taking the suspect one apart this weekend just to fiddle with it... who knows.
   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





It's not unheard of to fix graphics cards, it's just they depreciate quickly so for a repair shop it's usually not worth the effort as the repair bill will often be more than buying a new equivalent performance card.

But if it was a high end card that is just out of warranty (so still worth a bit of money) it might be worth fixing. It could just be a dodgy capacitor or blown resistor or maybe a chip that needs to be reseated, but if an IC has actually failed there's a good chance you won't be able to buy a replacement or it will be prohibitively expensive.

   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
so question for you guys.

I played on my computer one night and then the next day i turned my monitor on and it was black.
I leave my PC on 24/7 but shut off the monitor... its actually my TV so...

Any thoughts on what might have caused my card to just stop working?
I put an old card in it and the PC is fine so i know its the card but why...?
Its old so i suppose it could have just bit it finally but anything else?

I also tried another P/S with no joy.

Someone suggested drivers may have corrupted but that seems odd to me but i dont know.

thoughts?


If you have a black screen it might not be your graphics card. Ram motherboard or BIOS failure can also result in this. You could also have other points of failure dependant on what does work.

So:

1. When you boot the computer what do you hear? Do you hear the sound of your HDD, Windows log on anything that normally makes a sound when you boot up. This might narrow down what is happening.

2. Now open the case, and boot again. Observe which fans work when you boot up. Does the PSU fan work, dopes the CPU fan work, and also check GPU fans. Some fans might only operate at certain tempaeratures, but the PSU and CPU fans should start immediately. If they do not there will likely be a power issue.

3. Borrow compatible components and test your system. First replace the graphics card, replace it with anything frankly, use an old one lying around, or borrow one from somewhere. If that works, however badly, you have identified the problem and can get a new graphics card. If the test grapghics card deosnt work and should work then you will need to test other parts of the computer. This will be more difficult, ask local nerds for help.

Bottom line is, don't run out and buy a graphics card until you know what the problem is. You could have had any one of several components die on you, and might have had a power surge that effected several. You havent provided enough info to properly narrow it down. However blank screen does NOT necessarily means GPU failure.
Also how old is your system, is it time to buy new?

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