Help with new Video card

stulaunch

I think my video cards shot it. Please tell me otherwise if you think different.

Computer has been making loud wurring noise lately on boot up. Definately fan, so i guess it was my fan on my video card.
Today when i switched on i got masses of jumbled letters on my screen and strange colours and just after windows XP logo it says no signal.

Tried another moniter because i wondered if it was that, but was the same result.

I have a Nvidia Geforce 7600GT card in computer and i need something pretty cheap to replace it, any suggestions would be welcome. But daughters have use of computer and
have sims2 andother similar games so it needs to be able to play these.

Also, if it is video card, can i just take old one out and put new one in? as i'm capable of doing that, or is there more to it?

Thanks in advance.

DatabaseError

changing the card is dead easy, but you need to know whether you need an AGP card or a PCI-E.
why not just vac and blow out the pc, give it a good clean

awzm

Does your machine have an onboard graphics chip?

If so then just to make sure try using that for the time being. You'll have a lesser resolution but you'd still be able to use the computer.

stulaunch

Have tried a good clean out, but was the same.

How do i tell which card. It has AMD Athlon 64 procesor and nforce4-A939 motherboard, can you tell me from that or do i need to take it out again and read sticker on it.

Thanks

awzm

If you go to Device Manager and under 'Display Adapters' it should list the make and model of your card. Google it and any site should tell you what connector it uses, PCI-E or AGP

SJames_3

Download CPUZ, run it, get your motherboard info and Google will enlighten you from there. Although I would have thought your motherboard has a PCIE slot, it's always best to be sure.

Does the graphics card fan spin when it's on? The fans can be replaced without too much fuss and cheaply. The likelihood is, even though it isn't working at the moment, it may be undamaged as GPUs can take a lot of punishment heatwise.

stulaunch

trouble is i cant get anything on my monitor, just get no signal message

SJames_3

Oh yeah. :embarasse

Wookey

If you are near a decent pc shop you can pull the card out and ask them if it is pci or agp, they may well have an old card that could very cheaply replace yours (more so if its agp). If it is a pci card there may well be an entertainment express (or similar) near you that may have one at a reasonable cost. Sims game shouldn't need to much gfx card power to run and a pc with reasonably modern parts could well run it using onboard gfx.
Be wary though if you start down the road of diy pc repairs, a faulty motherboard or power supply could well be the problem and it will result in a new gfx card going wonky.

awzm

Easiest way to find out if it's PCI-E or AGP...

pull the card out and compare it to an image like this: http://twojepc.pl/html/pci_express_kontakt/agp-vs-pci_2.jpg

2 minute job

stulaunch

Its a pci express card.

Anyone know of any goood offers on a replacement card should i need one.
Dont want an expensive one.

I think i'm going to have to check thats the problem though first

Does it sound like a graphics card problem. Ive started it up with casing off and the graphics card fan is working ok. The noise is from main fan. On start up Computer runs for about 10 secs, get to windows xp logo, then computer carries on but get no signal message and monitor goes into standby.
Or could it be more serious