Through a Video Card, Darkly
Jun. 1st, 2006 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsMy desktop died this afternoon. It doesn't boot, and when it makes it past POST it gives one long beep and three short beeps. I looked this up and it means No Video Card.
I pulled out the video card, an old GeForce 4 TI4200 8x AGP w/128MB (looking at the websites, I can see that it goes now for an average of $40). There are burn marks on the fan! It collected so much dust that it simply ceased to spin and burned out. The glue on the label is dried out from the heat and flaking off.
Yech. I hope just replacing it is sufficient. If its burnout caused deeper problems, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
I pulled out the video card, an old GeForce 4 TI4200 8x AGP w/128MB (looking at the websites, I can see that it goes now for an average of $40). There are burn marks on the fan! It collected so much dust that it simply ceased to spin and burned out. The glue on the label is dried out from the heat and flaking off.
Yech. I hope just replacing it is sufficient. If its burnout caused deeper problems, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 07:21 am (UTC)I replaced the heatsink and fan as a combo - with a copper heatsink and new fan, and the card's never run cooler... in one of the kids' PCs, not mine.
Depending on how old the PC is, and what you use it for, you may condsider just replacing it / the internals. We're at a point where new kit is way more than twice as fast as things of that generation, and twice as fast is my personal 'it's worth upgrading' point.