Through a Video Card, Darkly

[elfs]

My 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.

Comments

[elfs.livejournal.com]

It could be the video card and something else, but there's definitely something wrong with video card. The fan assembly is blackened by overheating. I'm going to replace the video card this afternoon: Frys is having a sale on an nVidia FX5500 256MB for $29.95, which makes me wonder if there isn't something wrong with EVGA products, but I tend not to push my video cards too hard anyway.

EVGA

[(Anonymous)]

I have an EVGA 6200, fanless, that I got for $60 after two $30 rebates just before xmas. Worked fine, though I don't like nvidia products (they have more quirky problems with games than ati, but then I expect graphic cards to seemlessly let me run games in windows, have a tv program running, along with a few yahoo widgets going, while browsing and stuff..) Nvidia cards always have some problem that crops up for me, like quirks playing games windowed.

If I were more of a single-tasker I bet I'd have more luck with nvidia, though I'm very happy right now with my new x800gto (only downside is loudness of fan but I'm going to get a new cooler to fix that).

EVGA seems to be pretty decent, the 6200 was a decent card. Its going into a celeron machine I'm making for a friend.

[(Anonymous)]

Wish live journal let me identify myself easier, forgot to add my name at the end there..

BTW, your Ti 4200 was a wonder choice for a card, it has a great price performance, and stood up solidly over time. Here is a list I often use for comparisons: http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/54675-graphics-card-ranking.html

...Jeffrey Boser