Computer tech help?

[indiana_j]

Argh.  Okay, so I went this morning to hop onto my computer - I had left the monitor on last night and after about 10 minutes, it goes to sleep.  I move my mouse and the screen doesn't pop back up.  I try again and the same.  I hit the off switch on the monitor and then turn it back on - I get a flash of color, a little box saying "VGA No Signal."  Frustrated, I restart the computer and...nothing.  I check all the cords, they're all plugged in like they should be.

...am I right to be afraid that something has happened to my video card?

Comments

[frito-kal.livejournal.com]

That's typically a card error - if you had monitor problems, you wouldn't get ANY errors. I can't remember if your computer has a separate video card on top of the one that came on the motherboard. If it does, you can remove the extra one and go to on-board to test. Or hook the monitor to another PC or laptop to check to make sure IT works.

[indiana-j.livejournal.com]

I'll try and hook it up to my laptop when I get home and I've an extra monitor in the basement that I can take the computer down to (it's your old one, the HUGE one) it and double check that as well. And I'll crack the case and see what I have because I can't remember either.

*bangs head on desk* Thank god for the laptop. How much does a good video card run these days?

[frito-kal.livejournal.com]

Not a whole lot, and if you have on-board, you can use that until you have cashes.

[indiana-j.livejournal.com]

I guess the question is - what happens if I don't have an extra video card and it's the on-board one that's died?

[frito-kal.livejournal.com]

I'm probably committing blasphemy saying this, but you trot on over to Best Buy, price some video cards, and if you can't afford it right then, you suffer on the laptop until you can?

[indiana-j.livejournal.com]

*grins* That's doable. I was just worried that if it was on-board it'd be harder to replace or something.

[frito-kal.livejournal.com]

I think at worst, you'll have to go into the bios and turn something off. Once you rip through testing monitors, you can figure things out.