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Son Goku
12-23-04, 12:05 AM
OK, I started noticing this, this past summer. When I went away for the family reunion, I shut everything down, turned everything off in my appt (accept the air conditioning which I just turned up some to about 75-77 degrees or so), so as not to waste power when I wasn't here.

When I came back the following week, upon booting I didn't get video initially on the monitor. I tried re-seating the gfx card (though nothing should have been moved when I was gone, plugging the monitor cable back in, etc), and nothing.

Turned out, if coming from a cold boot, the gfx won't come up right away during the boot process as they previously did, but only starts too during Windows loading. This is not how things used to be. From a warm boot, the post messages display and all as normal. Also, the gfx are rather darker then normal until it's been up for awhile now.

However, if the monitor is turned off and turned back on latter, this isn't an issue, as the gfx will come right up, regardless of how long the monitor has been powered down. I thought maybe the monitor was going at first (had this monitor since 1999), however given this, I think the monitor can safely be ruled out.

I thought it might be due to...well since some people I knew died, I didn't have access to an air compressor so it had been awhile since I could completely dust the computer. The CPU fan started sounding a tad bit off, though I dusted all the fans out and around the case with some canned air...and things sounded normal again. The video not comming right up during post anymore not alleviated.

Could this be due to a PSU that's starting to go (I've had this PSU since I got an Athlon 700 slot A around the time the first Athlons had come out)? Motherboard? hmm

OK, the comp is

Athlon XP 1900+
Asus A7N266-E (using a first generation nForce 420-D chipset)
512 MB (256 x 2) Corsair XMS 2400 CAS 2
Visiontek Radeon 9600
old 400 watt PSU I had previously (mentioned above)
OCZ Gladiator copper heat sink, with arctic silver II thermal paste

Temperature wise, I measured the thing at about 44 C CPU temp under load, and about 29 or 30 C case temp using Asus's monitoring tool for this. Hadn't loaded that in awhile though, and pretty much when I was building it and all. Been through several installs since.

Son Goku
12-31-04, 06:58 PM
Slight update. When I had to shut down my computer yesterday so they could check (then fix the problem) in the circuit breaker box...upon rebooting my comp didn't give video.

This time upon restarting I got one long and either 2 or 3 short beeps. After removing and re-seating the gfx card 2 times it came back up, though the video was extremely dark for awhile at first.

Kojiro
01-07-05, 12:10 PM
Why would turning monitor off and on solve anything?

Only lamers think their cards just pooped out after years of normal use.

These are the questions you should ask yourself.

Has the video card been performing well for a long time? If so you can take the card out of the equation, unless you did somthing to it recently such as overclocking, replacing the cooler, or flashing BIOS.

The you repeat the question for the computer itself. Has it been acting strange? The most causes for computers to act strangely is due to viruses and/or spyware. Nasty viruses can cause all sorts of issues with hardware and software. Spyware can bog computers to a crawl giving lamers the false impression that their computers need to be faster. Not to mention gather personal information.

When booting you should see text on the screen that displays the card installed. This comes up before CPU detection and Memory count. If it is there, then card has been installed properly.

The rest should all be software.

Serial_Killer
01-10-05, 04:43 PM
Son Goku
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: 439 East District, Mount Paozu
Posts: 2,175 Re: Would my gfx card be on it's last legs or?

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01-08-2005, 05:10 AM #3
Kojiro
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 76




:D :D :D

GlowStick
01-10-05, 04:55 PM
Hm son, It could be the video, with the dark picture could be a sign,

Or it kinda sounds like your mobo is gong out, I usto own a AMD MP system (horrrrriiiiible horrible horrible mobos) and it would do that about every 5 months (rma'ed 3 mobos) basicly once it booted it was fine, but cold boots were no go.

aAv7
01-11-05, 11:00 AM
well, do u have another pc or a friends pc u can use? Throw the card in there and see what happens.

I'd rule more towards the psu or mobo...