Hardware problem, possibly failing graphics card.

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22 Aug 2007
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Having a bit of a weird problem with my PC recently. It all started when I was playing Warcraft, I just suddenly lost all video. Rebooting the PC didnt seem to work, also I didnt get the usual bootup noises it just seemed like it wasnt actually being reset.

When I powered down, it refused to power up again, no fans spinning up, nothing. There was a green light on the motherboard however. I managed to start it up about ten minutes later which lead me to believe it may be an overheating problem, I have a Gainward 6600GT passive card. I increased the case fan speeds which are position near the card and after that it seemed stable again. This was definately not a fix though as occasionally I was still having problems getting the PC to start up.

Yesterday I lost video again while playing Warcraft, it happened again later on and since that time Ive been unable to get it to start up at all.

The motherboard light is still on, I can see the ethernet port lit up but no response when I try and turn it on. The only way I can get it to power up is to hold down the case power button while I turn the PSU switch on. When I do this the PC briefly fires up, hard drives, fans etc but after maybe 2 seconds it powers back down again. I did notice that the powering down coincides with the ethernet socket LED lighting up.

It seems to me like when its powering up some kind of hardware test is done and the point where this finishes the motherboard becomes active and the LEDs light up. Is it possible that its powering back down because something on the motherboard is faulty?

The main culprits are either the PSU, graphics card or motherboard I guess .. my best guess would be the graphics card but Im not sure. Im not in a position to start swapping components in and out so Id appreciate hearing about opinions, similar experiences etc

My PC is made up of 3.2ghz PIII, Asus P4C800-E, Gainward 6600GT (passive), Nesteq (semi fanless) 450W PSU.

Thanks for your time!
 
If you can, open up the side of your case and point a fan straight at the GFX, if it still crashes, then your problem lies elsewhere.
 
If you can, open up the side of your case and point a fan straight at the GFX, if it still crashes, then your problem lies elsewhere.

If the PC was powering up consistently Id still be considering a heat problem but at the moment its not powering up at all, even from cold.
 
As I sit here on my laptop, my PC has just decided to switch itself on, and has booted successfully all the way into windows?? On the post screen however I got a prompt telling me that overclocking has failed. A quick search tells me this is a common ASUS board message but I dont know what causes it to be shown. Im not overclocking anything and am using stock settings all round.
 
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