My computer kills video cards!

This is my old Dell XPS 400 I've had since 2006 and I've been just hanging on the last few months. Obviously not a Windows 7 problem, but I'm posting here because I got such nice answers about my wife's "new" computer.

It had a GeForce 7900 when I bought it in June 2006. Around January this year, the screen started looking crazy and got worse and worse. You couldn't read text. I replaced the video card with a used GeForce 7500 and it worked again. I wanted to go as cheap as possible because I was planning my next computer.

Well, here it is July and I haven't got the new computer yet. The screen went totally black. I put in another used GeForce 7500 and this time it stayed black - except the VGA monitor had a brilliantly colored plaid pattern.

Two questions:

1. I assume that taking any further steps to make it viewable will be too expensive and/or too much trouble. Is there anything not too drastic to try?

2. I have most of my data backed up on Carbonite, so I'm not freaking out about that. I expect to lose some stuff, but I haven't thought of anything major that I might lose. I haven't looked on Carbonite online yet.

Can I take one of the RAID array drives and put it in another computer and boot it up? Then I could easily transfer anything I need to an external hard drive and onto the new computer.

If this will work, is there anything I should know? Will that computer become dual boot enabled?

Thanks for reading this far and thanks for any help you can think of.

-Steve

sped800 said:

...I put in another used GeForce 7500 and this time it stayed black - except the VGA monitor had a brilliantly colored plaid pattern...

Click to expand...

You might have the new Windows 7 SE (Scottish Edition). :devil:

You might be able to transplant a RAID array and salvage everything, but it's asking for trouble. I'm not sure what you mean by moving "one of the RAID array drives" but if they are striped you will have nothing.

I'd beg borrow or steal a cheap video card just to get the old computer running long enough to do a proper backup. You could probably find a brand new card for $20 that would do the job. If your data is not worth $20 to you I'd just forget it.

1. Take the HDD on the broken computer, plug it on your friend's computer, then use it as secondary slave. Or
2. If the operating system (windows) you have on the broken computer is OEM you'll not be able to boot them on another computer unless you reinstall the windows. If it's not OEM i think it will work Or
3. Buy new cheap video card (safest way i guess).

profdlp said:

sped800 said:

...I put in another used GeForce 7500 and this time it stayed black - except the VGA monitor had a brilliantly colored plaid pattern...

Click to expand...

You might have the new Windows 7 SE (Scottish Edition). :devil:

I'd beg borrow or steal a cheap video card just to get the old computer running long enough to do a proper backup. You could probably find a brand new card for $20 that would do the job. If your data is not worth $20 to you I'd just forget it.

Click to expand...

joebum said:

1. Take the HDD on the broken computer, plug it on your friend's computer, then use it as secondary slave. Or
2. If the operating system (windows) you have on the broken computer is OEM you'll not be able to boot them on another computer unless you reinstall the windows. If it's not OEM i think it will work Or
3. Buy new cheap video card (safest way i guess).

Click to expand...

My rambling story didn't make clear that I already tried another cheap video card and that didn't work.

I'm hopeful about being able to boot up my old drive on another computer. The RAID reference was off the point; they're mirrored, not striped.

I won't be trying it for a while; first priority is getting the new computer.

Thanks, profdlp and joebum!

Mirrored drives at least gives you a backup plan if the first drive gets garbled during the recovery attempt.

Other things you might consider are that your PSU might be going bad and actually be the real culprit behind the dying video cards. If you can borrow a spare it's at least worth a shot. You might also consider an old-school plain vanilla PCI video card, since it could be your PCI-X slot that has gone south.

Good luck!