GPU sureness analysis :D

GothicGothicness

GothicGothicness

SasqWatch
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I have an older computer.... it starts up like normal ( from the sounds and looks of it )... but the GPU looks completely dead... it doesn't even appear to startup ( screen blank fan doesn't start etc), however the other part of the computer appears to boot up just find.

Now I found a cheap new graphics card for 50 euro...... so I don't need to be sure or anything I just want a % of the chance of it being the GPU which is broken... if it is 30% or bigger I find it worthwile to invest 50 euro... instead of wasting a lot of time on a detailed analysis.. so what do you guys think?
 
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What gpu is it do you happen to know? There are som old ones that were known to burn up quickly. If you dont have a replacement gpu to test whether its broken now you can atleast buy one for 50€. Its good to have spare just for testing purposes.

Is the card properly installed and extra power wires are plugged in? And the gpu fan still doesnt start to run? Sounds like its dead then.
 
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It is a geforce 7800 GTX… and it has seen extensive use ( It is one of my testing machines for running games I develop among other things )

It just suddenly ended up dead on saturday night it worked fine….. sunday morning completely dead… I checked cables… plugged it out.. plugged it in again. Still completely dead fan doesn't even start…

the Radeon HD4550 512MB HDMI looks quite a bit faster and better too… for 50 euro that's really cheap. Ooops it appears I confused it with another card... the 4550 looks much slower :S
 
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Many motherboards comes with a diagnostic bracket with 4 LEDs that you can plug in. At boot time the colors of the LEDs maps to the various startup states. If your card is dead then it should probably hang when initializing the graphics.
 
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That's a good idea, I could have a look at that, I decided to pickup a geforce gt 220 instead.. it cost 60 euro.... in the worst case I could probably resell it.
 
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wow that was weird.. I exchanged them and found that the screen now showed the bios starting up.... only to get completely messed up when windows was about to start... so I was thinking like... darn it most be the powersupply... and tried booting from ubuntu CD..... works flawless and looks really good.... and I found I can post here while ubuntu is installing isn't that kind of cool....

I had that problem on windows on another computer the other day... it appears windows XP installation gets messed up if you change graphics card.... not even fail-safe works at all....
 
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It's because Windows is trying to run the old card's drivers, and is ignoring the fact that you have a completely different card. At least that's the best I can think of. I've had it happen before too, but it's been awhile. I don't remember what I did to repair it.
 
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But I am really woundering why it doesn't work in safe mode... as far as I know all it should do in safe mode is load a standard VGA driver which would work for any card!
 
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Did you use anything like Driver Swepper or DriverCleanerPRO (free editions) to make sure every and all old video caqrd drivers are gone? You kay already know this but just in case not I suggest doing the following…

1. Download Driver Cleaner Pro or Driver Sweeper (both have free versions; make sure the version will work with your OS) to your desktop screen and install.

2. Download the latest diver(s) for your video card but don't install them.

3. Uninstall your video card drivers and reboot your PC into Safe Mode. Run Driver Cleaner Pro or Driver Sweeper. If it doesn't find any video card drivers that is quite okay.

4. Reboot and install new video card drivers.
 
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The problem is windows cannot boot even into safe mode.

What is even worse is I cannot repair it... because it requires administrator password. But when I enter the administrator password it says it is wrong.... even if it is the right one.. so I am guessing my windows is really fried.

I am running ubuntu though without problems installed to my hard-drive so I think probably my computer works fine.....

I will try to solve it...... I really don't feel like re-installing windows xp :( :(
 
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I got a bit futher still. I managed to run the repair.. and now I can get windows to boot fine into failsafe mode! I tried the driver sweepers and sweeped all the drivers but not luck....

However if I try to run the normal mode…. it crashes after about 30 seconds even if I don't login. I tried to disable a lot of hardware devices but it doesn't help. Good I hate this kind of windows problems… if I wasn't a gamer / gamdeveloper I would stay on ubuntu for sure… runs so smooth now…. that's why I am quite sure it cannot be a hardware problem too….
 
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I gave up and re-installed windows.... that was one nasty error... all working great now. I guess you have to count on re-installing windows.....
 
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