Busted video card?

Something's wrong with my cousin's computer. The PC boots okay but it
doesn't output a signal to the monitor. We tried another monitor to check
but that didn't work either. The 3D AGP Intel Direct video card is the
problem.

She moved the tower with the monitor connected a few days ago and when I
inspected the monitor plug on the tower it definetily seemed to be pulled
out more on the right side. Since the monitor wire was screwed into the
plug during the move, could she have pulled the monitor plug out of the
video card socket internally?

I tried opening it up but the monitor plug is completely covered by the
printer port so I couldn't get to it.

Can anybody recommend anything? Would it be possible to buy a new video
card for one of the open slots? Even if I did, would I be able to install
it without being able to get to XP due to the busted card? Or is
professional maintenence the best option? (no warranty service remains).

On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 09:40:46 GMT
"Gabagimpy" <spacehut2001.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com> wrote:

 > Something's wrong with my cousin's computer. The PC boots okay but it
 > doesn't output a signal to the monitor. We tried another monitor to
 > check but that didn't work either. The 3D AGP Intel Direct video card
 > is the problem.
 >
 > She moved the tower with the monitor connected a few days ago and when
 > I inspected the monitor plug on the tower it definetily seemed to be
 > pulled out more on the right side. Since the monitor wire was screwed
 > into the plug during the move, could she have pulled the monitor plug
 > out of the video card socket internally?

Just to be sure I'm clear on what you've said, I'm going to rephrase--it
sounds like you're saying that there are several connectors on the back
of the machine, all of which are built into the motherboard, and the one
for the video is pulled out on one side and not aligned with the others.

If that is the case then there are broken solder joints or the
connector is physically broken--that connector doesn't go into a socket
on the board, it's soldered down.

 > I tried opening it up but the monitor plug is completely covered by
 > the printer port so I couldn't get to it.
 >
 > Can anybody recommend anything? Would it be possible to buy a new
 > video card for one of the open slots? Even if I did, would I be able
 > to install it without being able to get to XP due to the busted card?
 > Or is professional maintenence the best option? (no warranty service
 > remains).

You should be able to get a PCI video board for one of the slots,
whether you can get it to work or not though depends on the design of
the motherboard--if it has a jumper that allows you to select PCI or AGP
as the video board to use at boot then you can jumper it to PCI and you
should be good to go. If it doesn't have such a jumper then you'd need
to get into the setup program to make the change, which you can't do
because of the break.

If you know someone with good electronics skills he might be able to
replace the connector for you if it didn't do irreparable damage to
the board on the way out--if you're paying someone commercial rates to
do it it's likely going to be cheaper to just get a new board.

--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
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