Pc help

MikeF

hey guys, i've just recently run into some computer problems, need a little advice.
about a week ago i took apart my pc for cleaning and upon reasembling and powering on i had hue shifts over my monitor, i played with the cables a bit and it went away, until last night when all the sudden my screen's locked up (computer was still running fine) and a bunch of red static apeared everywhere.

had to remove my video card, onboard seems to work fine. I'm thinking i reseated it improperly upon reasembling after cleaning, but i may have also accidentally pluged the auxilliary power cables into the wrong ports on the card (switched p3 with p4)

so i've fried the card almost certainly, but i'm wondering if i may have damaged any other parts. could i squeak by with only getting a new card and psu, or could i have damaged the mobo?

and if my power supply is ok, would my existing 650w be ok for a gtx460?

thanks for any input

ZacD

unless you have extra parts, its really just a guessing game, the mobo could be fine, but its hard to say.

MikeF

thanks zac,

is it actually possible for something like this to damage other parts?

even if i could salvage the psu or something that'd help

if i had extra cash to burn i'd just move on to a new system since this ones going on 5 years, but i'm in a pinch here.

might just have to bite this bullet to play it safe...

notman

You may have actually blown crap into your ports, before you pushed the cards back in. A good card design should not fail because of using the wrong plug, especially if there is a different 'standard' adapter that could work.

For future reference, I wouldn't remove anything to blow out the crap. It doesn't matter if you get every spec off, and you're better off keeping the computer how it was, so there is less chance of screwing up ports, pins, and cables.

BadgerBaiter

PSU will be more than enough for a 460.

MikeF

thanks notman, you may have just saved me big $$ i gave the port a good spray, put it back in and everything is fine so far... fingers crossed

notman

np, good luck

MikeF

spoke too soon, went down again.

i'm thinking it has to be the card at this point, since i had it in for about 20 minutes with no problem, this leads me to believe that the port is fine since it would likely happen immediately if that was the issue... And if it was an aux. power issue i'd have gotten warning beeps when the problem accorued.

i've attached some pics of what it looks like upon rebooting. I can get to the first xp loading screen before it becomes completely unresponsive, the command prompt works although certain chracters are all screwy looking.





i also had a noticeable decline in performance in the weeks leading up to this, this is the initial reason for the cleaning. Thought process seem about rite?

notman

I bet it's overheating. It wouldn't surprise me if removing it helped loosen the heatsink.

Rwolf

I hade my old Radeon All-in-wonder do this. It would overheat within a few min and glitch. Was told old by then, and aftermarket heatsinks too much. Bought a new card.

MikeF

yeah, seems this model (8800gtx) has some issues with overheating.
ordered the 460, thanks guys

MikeF

got new card today, put it in, half way through installing drivers i got a bsod and cant even get into my bios. any ideas?

greevar

It sounds like to damaged some components in your motherboard and video card by feeding it the wrong voltage. Too much voltage can damage electronics, this is why they use resistors. You may have even damaged your CPU as they are very sensitive to excess voltage. You probably are looking at getting a new GPU, CPU, RAM, and motherboard. Sorry.

notman

It's hard to tell. In all honesty, the power supply could have gotten fried.

Let it sit for a while, then try it again. If it posts again (and you can get to the bios), then you have a different overheating issue... at that point, most likely the CPU heatsink. If it won't power up anymore, then MAYBE your power supply. So you have a different PC that you can steal a power supply from temporarily?
If it won't power up after cooling for a bit, and an alternate power supply doesn't work, then your mobo is probably dead.

MikeF

well, i've been running for a few hours playing brink to see if anything would happen and so far so good.

I found out that it was posting, just taking a long time to get past to first boot screen.

did a fresh install of the drivers, noticed there were some conflicts with old onboard drivers, so i'm thinking that could have caused the bsod

For some reason (i'm thinking really shitty and old mobo) it boots as quick as it did before when i take the card out, but when i leave it in it takes around 2-3 minutes to hit windows login. Seems to be working fine once in windows.

I'l be keeping an eye on it, as i'm sure there'l be some issues to arise, just too broke for a new system rite now

notman

See if there are new chipset drivers for your mobo.

EarthQuake

make sure that if your video card needs the extra power supply connector, that it is pluged in(usually labeled PCI-X, 6x pin), some cards will run without the extra power connector, but may give you issues.

oXYnary

People always forget about this, but check for a bios update as well for the MB. Might help with the long post time.