Has my Graphics card given up the ghost? (Newbie)

[rlwalshy]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post to this site so hi to everyone!

I hope someone more knowledgable than me can help me out - I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to these things. My system comprises of an AMD Athlon 2400+ cpu, Asus A7V8X motherboard with 1 gig ram and a Geforce TI4600 graphics card.

The other day I switched on my PC to be met with a blank screen just after the windows XP loading screen. I rebooted into safe mode and noticed some weird green vertical lines kept appearing. I removed and reinstalled my graphics drivers and all seemed ok until then next day when I had the same problem. Basically it kept getting worse until reinstalling the drivers had no effect - now I can only boot up windows in VGA mode or with the drivers uninstalled and even then I get strange lines/objects on the screen. I even get them on the initial black and white boot up screen. If I hit F8 to go into safe mode I get these weird green blocks on the screen too.

Am I right in thinking my Graphics card has keeled over?

Apologies if I've just asked something daft!

 

[DonNagual]

Definitely sounds like a graphics card problem. It may just be a cooling issue, so try running with the case open and a fan blowing just to test, but it sounds to me like your card is toast.

One other thing to check just to rule it out, look in your bios and see what it is reporting for the voltages on your +3.3v, +5v and especially the +12v rails.

 

[rlwalshy]

Thanks for the swift reply,

I'll definitely open up the case tonight.
What will I be looking for on the voltage rails. Will the displayed voltages differ from the values described? (Sorry I'm a bit new to this.)

Thanks in advance!

 

[DonNagual]

No problem, that's what this site is for! Geeks like me to feel like I add meaning to the world

Your bios shouldn't be reporting voltages varying more than 5% or so. So the 12v rail shouldn't vary more than plus or minus 5% of 12v. Again, my hunch is that your card is toast, but it can't hurt to rule out some other things to be sure.

 

[rlwalshy]

Thanks for your help!