ARGH MY GAMING PC IS SCREWED! Help please!

[Vilcus]

Looks like someone didn't clean out the dust.

Cooling systems, air around the machine and a semi-regular dust clean out are essential.

Actually, this kind of thing can happen even if you're very careful about cleaning your system. Sometimes the card has just had enough... mine did, I knew it was coming to because my system would get hot enough to cook an egg after having it one for 3 minutes. I got my dad to clean everything out, and I had fans going all around the thing to try and keep it cool. Then my video card melted... I shall always remember that day as the day I lost the ability to play WoW and Warhammer 40k at maximum settings, sad face.

 

[Kanakotka]

Buy a console and never look back? It's what I did.

And the most idiotic statement award of the year award goes to...
(Yes, i did reserve my first post for something as stupid as this)

Actually, don't take out a mortgage. A decent graphics card can be found for $50, if you look in the right places.

Glory to the runner-up. In the same thread too!

Gawking over the hole of infinite stupidity that is humanity aside, yes, your graphics card is toast. You need to buy a new one. Though if you had gone with a 6800 so far, you should be able to get a 8800 for roughly 100? / 80£ / $110

 

[The Lost Big Boss]

6800? Holy shit thats old.

I think its time for a new card, but the problem is it is an AGP card, and it is hard to find those older cards now.
I assume that your Mother Board doesn't have PCI-e 16x or 8x because you are running an AGP card, so you may need a new MB if you can't find an AGP card.

 

[The Lost Big Boss]

Double Post

 

[verindae]

hmmmm If you were playing Starcraft 2 then you might be in trouble... I heard that leaving it on the menu screen for too long can damage you graphics card and such :S But if its not that then I have no idea :/ I'm not too good when it comes to computers!

Yeah they fixed that a couple days after release, it was to do with the frame rates in the intermission not being capped, some cards went ape and burned themselves out but I doubt that has anything to do with it. SC2 on a 6800 may be possible on an outside chance but it's not recommended to say the least.

Hard to find anything reasonably priced in AGP these days, take this for example:
http://www.ebuyer.com/search?page=1&store=2&cat=215&subcat=1980

Not much to be done really, need a new card though, shop around and as a last resort check out Ebay, ya never know what you might find

 

[Ossian]

Check for killer dust bunnies in the fan/vents of the graphics card. Also check if it is working. Pull the card out and put it back in. Check power cables, clean out computer of dust, just make sure it is off and power drained (IE push the power button after you unplug.)

Don't listen to people say your GPU is dead, obviously they have no computer experience. I've had Graphics cards "die" on me only to still work with a little lovin' if the computer turns on but can't play games it sounds like a case of overheating when it is in use in anything but Desktop graphics.

 

[verindae]

Ok dude i do this for a living

Lets start from the start thou. It does seem like its your graphics card thats had enough of life, but lets be sure.

First thing you do is try to remove the card and start up the pc without a graphics card. If you can get it working means you can be sure its the graphics card. If it still isn't working that can be both good and bad news, depending on wether or not its something else that has been fried or if its an update that has buggerd up.

Now if looking at card and that you run XP i am thinking it might be to late for you to upgrade at this point, but ill need to know all the stats for certain. It might be good idea to wait a bit with running out and buying a new card untill you know wether or not its worth it, or even possible.

Start up without a graphics card? That'll get you the no video beeps and bugger all else so it's absolutely pointless...

If you wanna troubleshoot to see if it's the card or something else you need another card, plain and simple, a pc doesn't magically boot without a graphics card or some sort of video output, it's kind of essential :/

 

[geldonyetich]

To take a stab in the dark, your NVIDIA 6800 became choked with dust to the point where the fan didn't work anymore (or if there wasn't a fan it just retained a lot of heat) and shut down the monitor to get you to turn it off. When you decided to sit there and see what happened, it redlined to the point where the card decided to shut off its 3d functionality entirely. It's also possible it just burned out for no reason whatsoever - VDUs heat up and cool down so much that they generally have a very finite lifestyle. (This tendency is even more pronounced if you overclocked it in any way.)

The good news is that the 6800 is significantly slower than a GeForce 250 which you can pick up for about $110 and will probably comfortably run PC games for years to come considering how slow they've been at innovating lately. The only catch is if your motherboard is AGP (I can't be certain because they also made PCIe 6800s) then you're probably going to need to upgrade everything else about your computer in order to fit a new video card. You can't complain because you're about 6 years behind when PCIe became the new standard. I wouldn't buy another AGP card now because (unless maybe you find a used/refurbished one) they're way more expensive than they're worth because they're not making them anymore.

 

[Amphoteric]

hmmmm If you were playing Starcraft 2 then you might be in trouble... I heard that leaving it on the menu screen for too long can damage you graphics card and such :S But if its not that then I have no idea :/ I'm not too good when it comes to computers!

Star craft doesn't really have uber graphics.

 

[gerbil234]

Buy a console and never look back? It's what I did.

And the most idiotic statement award of the year award goes to...
(Yes, i did reserve my first post for something as stupid as this)

Actually, don't take out a mortgage. A decent graphics card can be found for $50, if you look in the right places.

Glory to the runner-up. In the same thread too!

Gawking over the hole of infinite stupidity that is humanity aside, yes, your graphics card is toast. You need to buy a new one. Though if you had gone with a 6800 so far, you should be able to get a 8800 for roughly 100? / 80£ / $110

Nice first post man. I don't agree with Souplex either, but I still respect that he's trying to give honest advice. On top of that, lacktheknack is actually right. I can run SC2 maxed with a card I found for like 80 dollars. If all your posts are going to be this abrasive and elitist, maybe you should just stop with that first one.

On topic, I do recommend buying another graphics card. As long as you're attentive, or maybe have a few connections through friends looking to upgrade their own rigs, you should be able to find a pretty decent deal. Just remember, the fun of a game ultimately rests with the gameplay, not the graphics. I still play starcraft brood war from time to time

 

[mayney93]

well seing as you have a older motherboard and graphics card and your not dead set on overhauling your pc i would just get a replacement 6800 or an ati equivalent gpu, i think that play.com have a few AGP cards still but i haven't seen them anywhere else

 

[nightfish]

TBH that card is pretty old. Good chance to upgrade

 

[verindae]

Ok dude i do this for a living

Lets start from the start thou. It does seem like its your graphics card thats had enough of life, but lets be sure.

First thing you do is try to remove the card and start up the pc without a graphics card. If you can get it working means you can be sure its the graphics card. If it still isn't working that can be both good and bad news, depending on wether or not its something else that has been fried or if its an update that has buggerd up.

Now if looking at card and that you run XP i am thinking it might be to late for you to upgrade at this point, but ill need to know all the stats for certain. It might be good idea to wait a bit with running out and buying a new card untill you know wether or not its worth it, or even possible.

Start up without a graphics card? That'll get you the no video beeps and bugger all else so it's absolutely pointless...

If you wanna troubleshoot to see if it's the card or something else you need another card, plain and simple, a pc doesn't magically boot without a graphics card or some sort of video output, it's kind of essential :/

Yeah because its not like there is a video output on about EVERY MB out there, or that I have put together 5 pcs this week without one just using the MB's internal processing for graphics... oh wait...

It isn't rocket sience. remove the card and plug you screen back to the basic port on you MB and see if you get anything.

Seriously, think of the age of the machine, it's highly unlikely to have on board vga, secondly no it's not like every motherboard out there has on board vga because they don't, mine doesn't and that's because it's entirely pointless on a rig where you'll be using an off board card anyway :/
I would even go so far as to suggest that's why he has a 6800 in the first place. Just cause you're building machines with on board vga all the time doesn't mean the whole world works like that...

Yes, I made an assumption that he has no on board vga, because that's the most likely of scenarios considering the age the system is likely to be and it makes alot more bloody sense than assuming he does have one.

Honestly, it's basic tech thinking. Also why the fuck would i know what you've done 5 times this week? o_0

 

[verindae]

Just about every PC has VGA avaiable to it. Only times i have seen where a graphics cards are must are with the new i7 processors where what you had described happens, and I dont belive that our guy here has an i7.

Asus P5NE-SLI, that's my motherboard, look it up and tell me what you see...

MSI K8N SLI Diamond Plus - Older Socket 939 board I gave to my brother, look it up and tell me what you see...

A-Open MK33 Quite an old Socket A board I used to own many years ago, look it up and tell me what you see...

That's 3 boards of different generations, 2 AMD 1 Intel, none of which use on board VGA. The list goes on but sadly I do not, this game is over, good day

 

[Souplex]

Buy a console and never look back? It's what I did.

A new console is more expensive than a new video card.

A new console is not more expensive than paying $4,000 for a top of the line PC and then having to upgrade it every six months.

Buy a console and never look back? It's what I did.

yeah cause those NEEEEEEEEEEEVER break *cough rrod*

Even with the Red Ring and Yellow Light, Consoles still survive better than PCs. Besides, the Red Ring is mostly in first generation Xboxes, and odds are you can't get one of those.

 

[Andantil]

New graphics card is needed... and why the hell are you still using a 6800 anyway?