Computer Died. Please Help

[TwistedBishop]

How old is your PC? I ask because the easiest thing you could do at this point is replace the video card, but if it's excessively old you may have a problem there.

 

[Fenris]

How old is your PC? I ask because the easiest thing you could do at this point is replace the video card, but if it's excessively old you may have a problem there.

A year and a half I believe (perhaps 2 and a half)

 

[TwistedBishop]

Then you almost certainly have a PCI-E slot for your video card. That makes everything quite simple.

Have you ever changed a video card before? It's basically a plug and play situation.

 

[Fenris]

Then you almost certainly have a PCI-E slot for your video card. That makes everything quite simple.

Have you ever changed a video card before? It's basically a plug and play situation.

No, but I have added a wireless card to a PCI slot, which I believe would be analogous. I just didn't see any video card in a slot to remove. My understanding was to find the monitor input and follow that, but there wasn't a card, just a small box attached to the mother board.

 

[drothgery]

Then you almost certainly have a PCI-E slot for your video card. That makes everything quite simple.

It's not all that uncommon for PCs with integrated graphics (especially from major OEMs) to lack a PCI-e x16 slot for a standard graphics card.

 

[Rackhir]

It's not all that uncommon for PCs with integrated graphics (especially from major OEMs) to lack a PCI-e x16 slot for a standard graphics card.

It is not necessary to have a PCI-e x16 slot with almost all the graphics cards. Most of them should function in as little as a x4 slot as long as the slot is physically a x16 slot (Often they will use the physical x16 slot, but only hook up a lesser number of data connections). An x8 Slot (if available) looses little performance vs an x16 slot for most cards and should be physically identical. A standard physical x4 Slot is smaller than a x16 slot though. So most graphics cards won't fit in one.

Obviously you won't get the full performance with the x4 slot, but considering what the motherboard graphics are like, even in an x4 slot you're likely to get a substantial performance boost. If you only have x1 PCI-e slots then the OP is out of luck and will likely have to replace the motherboard (I hope it's under warranty if that's the case).

 

[drothgery]

It is not necessary to have a PCI-e x16 slot with almost all the graphics cards. Most of them should function in as little as a x4 slot as long as the slot is physically a x16 slot (Often they will use the physical x16 slot, but only hook up a lesser number of data connections). An x8 Slot (if available) looses little performance vs an x16 slot for most cards and should be physically identical. A standard physical x4 Slot is smaller than a x16 slot though. So most graphics cards won't fit in one.

Usually, x4 (or x8) slots that are physically x16 are a feature of server motherboards (or sometimes workstation motherboards that have two x8 slots for SLI) because the chipsets don't have the PCIe lanes for it. That's not an issue with the chipsets typically used for desktops, so if there's a physical x16 slot, it'll be electrically x16 as well. The thing is that some cheap OEM systems with integrated graphics lack a physical x16 slot (or at least, historically lacked an AGP slot).

 

[TwistedBishop]

No, but I have added a wireless card to a PCI slot, which I believe would be analogous. I just didn't see any video card in a slot to remove. My understanding was to find the monitor input and follow that, but there wasn't a card, just a small box attached to the mother board.

Okay, you need to open up your PC again and look at the motherboard around the PCI slots. Do you see one marked PCIE? In my experience it's always the topmost slot towards the CPU.

 

[Thanee]

Video Card should be fairly easy to test, biggest problem is to get one that you can use for testing, though I would still bet on the PSU having trouble. That, unfortunately, is not easy to test.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Fenris]

Okay, you need to open up your PC again and look at the motherboard around the PCI slots. Do you see one marked PCIE? In my experience it's always the topmost slot towards the CPU.

Indeed it was. Took me a bit to find where it was labeled but it does say PCIEX16, it is the only black PCI slot and it has a retaining clip.