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Display corrupted - video card?
I am in a dilemma here. My 7 year old Dimension 9100 desktop has been rendered useless because of a corrupted monitor screen: extraneous lines, rows of little boxes, all starting with the Dell splash screen at bootup. I can actually boot into Windows XP, the BIOS, the utility partition, whatever, but they are all so garbled as to be useless. I can run no diagnostics because of this.
This XP/sp3 system has been my workhorse, and I really need to fix it (even though I have newer Win 7 systems).I basically just use it these days for my email (Outlook Express, and OWA)and casual net surfing.
I have ruled out the monitor as the culprit, since it works just fine when connected to a Win7 PC. I don't think it is a cable problem, since I see it with both DVI and VGA cables.
When this problem started intermittently a week ago, I ascribed it to the heat wave we were having. The heat wave broke, but the problem got worse, and is now permanent. And when my system was working last week, my Device Manager flagged no problems. I have sprayed out all the dust bunnies, and checked all cable connections.
Which leads me to suspect my 7 year old video card (an ATI Radeon X850) has failed. I am no hardware expert, and have no way of confirming this.
Does this analysis seem correct? Dell still offers video cards compatible with the 9100, and I will gladly purchase one if it will fix the problem, but I do not wish to waste money if the problem lies elsewhere.
Any advice much appreciated!
RoHe
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July 14th, 2012 17:00
Joe53-
First thing would be to re-seat the PCI-e video card
<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>
in its slot. Power off, unplug and press/hold power button for ~15 sec before opening the case. Then remove and reinstall the card. Close the case and reboot.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the 9100 has onboard video so if re-seating the card doesn't help, your only choice will be to try a different card. You can buy any PCI-e x16 card that fits your needs and budget. You don't have to buy it from Dell so shop around.
Can't recommend any specific cards so perhaps somebody else will weigh in with a suitable recommendation. Given that the system is 7 years old, you probably don't want to put a lot of $ into it, but I see inexpensive PCI-e cards in the $20-$50 range. You can look for one that has similar specs as the ATI Radeon X850, or maybe even for the same card.
joe53
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July 14th, 2012 21:00
Thanks so much for that info Ron.
As you probably surmised, this is now a backup system which no longer needs high-end graphics. The actual GPU I have is:
Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition, 256MB onboard memory
Unfortunately, I was totally unable to unseat/reseat this PCIe card, even using the 9100 manual instructions. It is wedged in there tighter than (insert metaphor of choice). After 7 years, I think it is fused to the casing!
I guess this mandates a trip to the local computer shop.
Thanks again for your advice!
Philip_Yip
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July 15th, 2012 04:00
You could try spraying the edges of the PCI-ex16 connector with a can of compressed air to see if that helps you loosen out the card.
RoHe
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July 15th, 2012 18:00
Or with a spray can of electronics contact cleaner, eg this or similar. Should be able to find it at RadioShack, PC shops etc.
RoHe
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August 21st, 2012 18:00
:emotion-21:
Did you perhaps have a power surge that took out the mouse and video card in one shot? Or maybe one of them failed all by itself and that wiped out the other piece of hardware too...??
At least it's up and running again and without too much investment, aside from all your time and the annoyance factor.
Don't want to jinx things but my Dimension 8400 (XP SP3) is still alive and doing well after almost 8 years. KNOCK ON WOOD!
I'd better do another hard drive backup tonight to ward off those crash demons! :emotion-13:
joe53
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August 21st, 2012 18:00
Follow-up:
Took a while to sort this out, but I finally got the job done. For a while I really thought this summer heat had fried my entire XP system.
First, I found a compatible graphics card - an ASUS HD 5450 SILENT, for about $60. After installing it, I got a "no computer signal detected" from my monitor, which would then go into a power saving mode.
Next, I re-seated all my PCI cards, and re-established my cable connections, and re-booted. Voila! Windows now booted normally. But my mouse pointer no longer could open anything with a left-click, nor could I change from the unusable VGA resolution presented. I had no way of installing the drivers for my new graphics card.
By this time, I was ready to throw in the towel on this 7-year old system as finally worn out, with its files un-recoverable.
As a last-ditch measure, I invested in a new $15 optical mouse. And that completed the fix! The entire system works as before. All I needed was 4 weeks or so of updates and patches. (Ouch!)
Previously, I had relied on XP system image backups to deal with disaster. I had never considered that various hardware failures (GUI, mouse) would render these backups useless.
I am now busy transferring all critical data files from XP to my Win 7 systems.
As someone with minimal experience dealing with hardware failure, you have my profound thanks, Ron. I think Dell is also due kudos for this old 9100/XP/SP3 system which continues to work so well for me.
RoHe
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August 21st, 2012 19:00
And one more thing...If you're making backup images with the likes of Acronis etc. you should still be able to open an image and separately save individual files using any other PC running the same imaging software.
So you don't need to restore the entire image to a hard drive just to get individual personal files back...