Lost visuals

Gozza

Gozza

Gozza

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Joined
15 Sep 2011
Posts
26
Earlier this morning my pc was working fine. I have McAfee installed and I left it running its planned scan. I noticed the sceen saver running ok but when I came back later the screen was frozen and the image broken up. No black spaces but just like it had switched to a low resolution and could only pick up certain colours.

I switched the system off and rebooted. It came up with the normal user screen with perfect resolution but when I clicked on a user it loaded up the expected settings but with a screen I could barely read. I've swapped monitors but this made no difference. I've tried other users from the user screen with the same result.

I checked for loose connections into the monitor and pc, and also inside the box for the same plus I checked the video card and memory cards were seated properly. I aslo ran a system check before it booted up fully and this came back with no problems even though I could only just about make out what it said on screen.

I run VISTA Business on a Dell Vostro 420 which is about 4 years old now.

Like I say - it was working fine then just went weird!

Any help and advice would be much appreciated.
 
I've managed to find what I think is the adapter. Its ays NVIDIA GE Force 9800 CT. But there is no delete button just a disable button.

Is this the one I should go for?
 
could be temps, could be something along the line of the cpu fan or graphics fan not able to cool components properly. I would do the basics first and five the inside a good old clean out and all fans too, worth a shot, then you can narrow it down abit more to components etc afterwards.
 
ok, I'll clean out the fans. It's no use trying to do much else because the screen is becoming worse by the minute. Virtually unviewable now.
 
Also, do you have a build in GPU? I.e. is there another VGA or similar port on the motherboard itself? This will show whether its the gpu or not
 
I've just felt the grphics card - the one with the fan built in - and it's very hot to the touch. Is this significant?
 
oo if its verry hot cccouldd be overheating, usually causes monitor viewing problems etc. if you've cleaned it up and gotten rid of the dust etc and it stilll aint cooling the chip properly then may have to look at other ways of cooling it - assuming it aint the monitor of course which has gone! :)
 
Sorry GPU- graphical processing unit - or graphics adaptor. Your's is:
NVIDIA GE Force 9800 CT

from the above posts it seems. Now the motherboard might also have a low power one built in. Above where you usually plug in the monitor, probably vertically, there may be another blue VGA plug for the monitor to go into?

If so, try it!
4X03t.jpg.png

Blue one
 
thanks for thtat beejjacobs!

I've swapped the monitor connectors and everything seems ok visually although it says its unsupported.

The NVIDIA seems like its had it. I took it out cleaned it but no change.

Next question is what should I replace it with?
 
Gozza said:
thanks for thtat beejjacobs!

I've swapped the monitor connectors and everything seems ok visually although it says its unsupported.

What says its unsupported?

The NVIDIA seems like its had it. I took it out cleaned it but no change.

Next question is what should I replace it with?

What do you use your PC for? If it's just for general use you may find it okay as it is.
Click to expand...
 
When I booted the pc up after I had switched the connection from the NVidia card to the blue VGA connector, American Megatrends (Dell's people I suppose) flagged this up as an 'unsupported video configuration detected' plus 'an add-in graphic card is available' and gave instructions to switch to the graphics card.

I use this pc for e-mails, the web, photoshop, genealogy, report writing, and analysis using excel mainly now that I'm semi-retired.
 
Okay. I'd suggest taking out he Nvidia card if you can/if you think its broken. (maybe try it again to be sure, is there more than one connector on it? If so try a different one)

Maybe see how you go without it, you can always then add one if you need to.
 
I have tried another connection slot for the NVIDIA card but the effect is the same so it seems like its the card.

When I disconnected the cables from the NVIDIA card and booted it up there was a high pitched sound almost like a whistle and I connected the cable up again. So I'm not really sure how I can simply remove it.

Thanks for your help and advice. Much appreciated.
 
Well, actually if its not causing any problems when you're not using it then leave it.

To take it out, you need to unplug the cables to it, undo some screws which will be holding it (1 or 2), then unclip it from the PCIe slot. It is hard to describe without seeing exactly how it is in your PC sorry.
 
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