Possible Video Adapter fault - Please help


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Guys please help with advice!

Today my old PC based on ASUS A8N32-SLI mb has stopped working. No signal on monitor and repeated three beeps (1 long and 2 short). I understand it means video adapter fault, but how to be sure?

And if I need to change a video card, what would be a sutable fanless budget option? The only game I play is MS Flight Simulator X. Thank you!

if you tried another card then it may not be the graphics at all. it could be the motherboard or the BIOS, or it could be the hard drive. how old exactly is this machine? i really doubt something happened to the graphics card slot to cause this. can we know what two cards you've been trying this with?

As weird as it seems, this actually happened to me before. My computer had been working fine, until one day I switched it on and I got the "no video" beep code. My motherboard seems to carry on booting up after the error code, although no video. I opened up the computer, took the card out and noticed that somehow, some dust had got into the slot. Perhaps it was blown from the fan on the card, but I simply blew the dust out with some compressed air, then re-seated the card again. Worked like normal again.

As per this:

Indicates a video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot initialize the video screen to display any additional information

Some basic tips:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000607.htm

http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/amibeep.htm

An error was encountered in the video BIOS ROM, or a horizontal retrace failure has been encountered.

Seems you're right however, I have had this before myself on another PC and it stopped after a reboot.

if you tried another card then it may not be the graphics at all. it could be the motherboard or the BIOS, or it could be the hard drive. how old exactly is this machine? i really doubt something happened to the graphics card slot to cause this. can we know what two cards you've been trying this with?

Thanks! The old video card is Gainward GeForce 7800GT PCX 512MB. The new one is ASUS HD 6670 DirectCU Silent 1GB.

I removed md from the case and disconnected everything including hard drives, PCI cards. I left only two sticks of RAM. So with both cards or without them, it is the same endlessly repeating beeps (1 long, 2 shorts). A question: if you try to boot mb with no graphic card -- how do the beeps go?

I think it is something related to PSU (Thermaltake Toughpower 600W) or the mb itself. Both are six years old.

Agree with Dust, everything clean ?

Also was system getting very hot oftern ?

Is all the Ram detected on MB ? ( Just incase it is this )

Check the PSU fan is spinning.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f15/asus-a8n-32-sli-deluxe-1-long-beep-and-2-short-beeps-on-startup-295217.html His problem resloved by RMA although yours is too old.

Agree with Dust, everything clean ?

Also was system getting very hot oftern ?

Is all the Ram detected on MB ? ( Just incase it is this )

Check the PSU fan is spinning.

http://www.techsuppo...tup-295217.html His problem resloved by RMA although yours is too old.

All clean. The mb was very hot from the beginning.

I have no video signal, so no way to check any messages from BIOS.

All fans are spinning.

To close the case. Bought new MB (with Intel new i3 CPU and 8GB of RAM :)). Installed with everything else from previous machine. Got almost new computer :)

So it was the faulty ASUS motherboard, not the video card.

Thanks everyone.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
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