Problems with old PC

[daantjuh44]

Hi everyone,

First off I'm not sure if I placed this in the right forum please move it if it's supposed to be elsewhere.

I'm having some trouble with an old pc running win XP.

The specs as far as I know them are as follows:

Intel Q6600

Asus P5B motherboard

2Gb of DDR2 memory

Nvidia 8800GTs

I'm getting artifacts all over my screen, red stripes running through the entire height of the screen.

The stripes appear as soon as I turn the PC on they also show in post.

I will try to get a picture of the stripes !

Now those stripes lead me to believe I have a gfx card issue, but when I tried to get my hardware temps using HWmonitor I had another surprise.

The only temp that was showing was my HDD temp, so I downloaded CPU-z to sea if it could find some more info.

CPU-z was able to tell me that I had ddr2 memory installed but couldn't find any dimm's and the gfx card area was greyed out.

I have got quite a mystery on my hands here.

Fingers crossed it's not the mobo !

Have any of you had problems like this before ?

 

[nothingspecial]

Have you tried the monitor on a different PC? That would be my first thing to do. Then swap out the cable if you have a spare.

Then check your settings are right, and that you're not running at too high a resolution or refresh rate for the monitor.

If you've done that, try taking out the graphics card and putting it back in. It may have come loose from the slot.

Failing that, post back here and let us know.

 

[sheroo]

Are the graphics card power cables seated properly?

 

[daantjuh44]

Yep they are !

I'm going to rebuild the PC and see if that fixes anything.

It is a fun thing to do anyway !

I will report back when it's done !

 

[daantjuh44]

No changes after reseating the CPU, new thermal paste and reseating the gfx card.

When I place the gfx card in I cant screw it in to the PCI bracket I have to pull on the gfx card a bit to get the screws in.

Is it maybe losing contact because of that ?

I also tried a different monitor and cable, that didn't work either.

Here are the images I promised:

 

[ruthless_villain]

can you try another gpu

 

[daantjuh44]

The only other GPU I have is the one in my main rig.

Dont think the power supply can handle it tbh.

 

[sheroo]

What about trying this gpu in your main rig?

 

[sheroo]

What about trying this gpu in your main rig?

 

[daantjuh44]

I have it in my main rig right now.

When I used just the old gfx card it gave me nothing but a black screen.

I have it running besides my 580 right now and it is recognized in device manager but gives out a error code 43.

Upon windows launch the card runs the fan at 100 % for about 15 secs.

Never had that before either.

EDIT:

Folding at Home is able to detect the card but it fails all WU's

I have been looking around the internet and error 43 usually indicates a broken card.

 

[sheroo]

Shame in its day that wasn't a bad card, I've still got a 8800GTX in my old rig.

 

[daantjuh44]

Yeah it has served me well for about 5 years.

Shame it's gone though I will have to disappoint my little sister that she can't play the sims for a while haha !

 

[yuri04]

why not try and bake it,

it might just be a loose connection, unless one of the pro's here something I don't.

it can't get any worse anyway

 

[daantjuh44]

Not sure if I can remove all the plastic of the card haha.

What's the average lifetime for a videocard ?

 

[daantjuh44]

Just started up my own pc which still had the old gfx card in. I had already disconnected the 6 pin cable from the video card so it only received power from the pci-e slot.

The card produced a high pitched beep that was about as loud as a car's alarm, maybe it was the small room but it hurt my ears !

Do all gfx cards do this if you forget to plug in the power connector or is this just the final sign of life ?

 

[sheroo]

Sounds like a final farewell...

 

[daantjuh44]

Haha too bad.

I still can't believe it produced so much sound, they could hear it a a story below !

 

[sheroo]

Have you looked to see if any of the capacitors have swelled or leaked?

 

[Terrifictez85]

I feel your pain, i just put my BFG 8800gts in my main rig for physx and i got an error code 43. It displays until i install drivers. Maybe you should try re-flashing the gu bios. I am gonna give it a shot. If not i'll make TTL keyring lol

 

[daantjuh44]

haha ! I might actually try to flash the lates bios thanks for the tip !

Capacitors all looked absolutely fine, I tried to disassemble the card. I removed all screws but I couldn't get the cooler off without pulling to hard.

Are they usually this hard to remove ?