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Problem description: So, today I woke up, like any other day, and I turned on my computer, like any other day. I'm walking out the door to go take a poo poo, like any other day, when I am stopped dead in my tracks by the horrifying sound of PC speaker beeps coming from the computer behind me. Beeeeeeep beep beep beep it goes. Beeeeeeep beep beep beep, each beep like hammer blow, pounding nails into my coffin. The screen is black, the monitor goes into idle mode. The computer stops beeping and continues its normal startup sounds, but the screen stays black. poo poo, I think. poo poo. I look up the beep code on my phone. I don't really remember the make of my bios, so I just look through lists until I find a pattern of beeps that fits the bill. American Megatrends. I'm sorry sir, but your video adapter is dead. I think to myself, yeah, that makes sense. My 460 SE has been nothing but trouble since I got it those two years ago. Whirring super loud when the fan goes over 40%. Being a dick in general. Makes sense that it'd die now. I go out, the indignity, to a brick-and-mortar shop. PC World. I stand there, staring at the shelf of shitass overpriced old timey graphics cards. The cheapest is a geforce 210. There's a sale on the gtx 650 ti that brings it into line, price wise, with amazon or just about any other uk webstore. I deliberate for a while, and buy both of them. The man at the checkout, a man called Chan (who bizarrely is an elderly hindu man, but who am I to judge?) struggles to get the cards out of the cupboard, then to scan the barcodes on the display boxes, I have to run back twice across the store to get a different display box with a non-ruined barcode. I help him with the boxes. He is very good natured so I do not feel irritated by him. I empathise with the shitiness of working at PC world, especially when you are really old. At that point in life you hope to be a professional armchair sitter, not trying to fit video cards into shittily designed boxes while a middle aged white woman jumps the queue to shout at you "WHERE DO YOU BUY FILM DVDS AROUND HERE? WHERE ARE THE FILM DVDS?". Chan tells her, he says "We don't sell them here I'm sorry, you can buy them online." to which she replies "So what if you're not 'online'? Where do you buy film DVDs in the world?". Chan says he doesn't know, and the woman shouts "WELL SOMEONE HERE MUST KNOW" and storms back across the vast, empty expanse of PC world. They do not sell film DVDs at PC World. So eventually I have both cards, I go home. I will spare you the journey. Now the reason I bought both cards is that previously I had had a computer where, after moving house, a fault had occured in the motherboard that made it murder, over the course of a week, a sound card and then the graphics card. I am worried that the same has happened again. I have fitted the 210, there were no bios beeps, the computer, to all appearances, is running fine now. The 210 is here as the sacrificial lamb to the motherboard. My conundrum is that I would like to put the nice 650 card in, but I want to check first that the motherboard will not murder it, without having to wait a week for the 210 to be killed. Is there any sort of diagnostic I can do to check that the motherboard is OK? Attempted fixes: Fitted new card, seems ok. Checked out BIOS to see if PSU is dying, but 12v rail voltage is normal so 460 should have gotten enough power. Recent changes: None. -- Operating system: Windows 7 System specs: Intel Core i5 2500 Geforce 210 (now) Geforce GTX 460 SE (formerly) Asus p8p67 pro motherboard Location: UK I have Googled and read the FAQ: Yes juggalo baby coffin fucked around with this message at 19:27 on May 30, 2014 |
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May 30, 2014 19:07
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 00:20 |
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There is no reason to believe your motherboard is in any way related to the graphics card failure, and that's a good quality board. If anything your power supply could be the problem though. What's the brand and model of your power supply?
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May 31, 2014 00:45
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It's an FSP Group FSP450-60APN. I think it's 450w, I had a look in the bios to check if the power on the 12v rail had gone down enough to possibly not power the card, but the 12v rail was still reading like 12.6v or so.
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May 31, 2014 03:29
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It's high voltages that damage components, not low voltages. 12.6v would be a dangerously high voltage so you might want to check that. Not that low voltages are okay too, but they usually just cause incorrect operation, not damage. The maximum allowable rang is +/- 5%, but ideally deviation should be much less than that. It really sounds like your videocard just died, it was pretty old. Your power supply is pretty cheap but at least workable as long as you're not overclocking.
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May 31, 2014 05:46
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Thanks for the advice dude, I checked again and the 12v rail was just over 12v, maybe it was reading high before cause it wasn't plugged in to anything. I put in the better graphics card and all seems well.
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Jun 1, 2014 10:20
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Well, the new card blew up today. I'm wondering if its cause it was plugged in to a hella dodgy powerstrip? Like, the computer had turned itself off a few times at random since I've been at this new place, and its been plugged into a grody old powerstrip that came with the flat because they built a lovely giant built in wardrobe in front of a power outlet so they ran this powerstrip round. On further inspection, some of the sockets on it are like partially melted and the thing rattles when you shake it. I've run a new powerstrip from the outlet on the other side of the room and plugged the PC in to that to take it away from the awful terror powerstrip. Would a bad powerstrip be enough to gently caress up a computer?
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Jul 28, 2014 23:14
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 00:20 |
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Yes. You should probably consult an electrician to avoid dying in a fire.
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Jul 28, 2014 23:29
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