Video Card Problems

Question

Okay so I have a Dimension 4550 with 512 ram that a bought in 2003. It came with a 64 mb vid card, obviously not the best if you want to play up to date games.   So 2 months ago I bought a GeForce 6200 -256 mb.   It has worked fine since then until 11 pm lastr night.   Last night I was on the internet when the screen went black and all I saw was different color vertical lines going up and down. This is what I saw when i turned the computer back on several times.   So I called Dell Tech Support at 11pm. After going through the process, we determined that it was the video card because when I put the old 64 mb one back in, everything worked fine.   Is there nothing I can do- did I waste my money for the video card?? I don't understand how after working fone for more than 2 months is can just out like that. =\   And if I spent the money to get another card- who's to say it wont happen again??   Any ideas on how to save my card?

fireberd · Answer

If the card is only two months old it should still be in warranty. Contact the card vendor for warranty replacement.    Some newer 'higher powered' video cards have a cooling fan on them and some don't.  If this one doesn't have a cooling fan it may have overheated.    I have an NVIDIA GE Force 4, 64Mb video in my old PC.  I bought a new PNY GE Force FX5200 and it was once without the video cooling fan and it overheated plus it overheated the SoundBlaster PCI card and overheated some of the motherboard components.  I had to fall back to the old GE Force 4 video card.

SR45 · Answer

I have sitting around my tempory 6200 card, which cost me all of $39.00 from newegg.com. Never buy from Dell, they cost way too much over other online vendors. Not a gaming card to say the least. It does not have a fan on it, so it might just have failed because of heat or some other issue. If you play games, than by all means get at least the 6600 GT card for that system, if not the better 7600 GS or better still the 7600 GT card. Yes, they do cost more, but they are well liked and they have a fan on them. And none of the video cards I mentioned really need a power supply upgrade, and others have them with the stock 250 watter. You do need to have ( Some retail boxes include them and some do not ) the Molex Y power cable to connect to the back of the video card, and the other end to either the cdrw or dvd optical drives extra power connector. Good luck

Dim 4400
2.6 Ghz 400 FSB
1 Gb 2100 DDR memory
Windows XP Home
120 Gb Seargate 7,200 drive
24 inch 2407 WFP
XFX 7800 GS O/C AGP
Dual 16x DVD-R
410 watt ( PcPower&Cooling )
PC-Cillon Internet Security

capierno · Answer

Well i intend to contact NVidia today over the phone. I didn't buy it from dell, I bought it from Best Buy. Since I won't be able to get my money back, I'll have to settle with them hopefully sending me a new card.   So it's probably dead? =\

SR45 · Answer

Best buy is too much as well.  www.newegg.com is a very good online company to purchase from and they have a good return policy as well.

tommyo1954 · Answer

Absoultely... another vote for Newegg.  An awesome customer service dept and great pricing too.

Locked Topics – Desktops General

Was this post helpful?