May 26 2011

PC Troubles

Published by at 7:40 am under Technology

I’m starting to have problems with the video card in my 3-yr old Dell. It seems to be getting hot, making the fan run much harder than it should. I wish I knew why because that fan is VERY LOUD.

The 512MB Geforce 8800GT was the top of the line at the time, but over time I’ve come to regret buying it. It was serious overkill and I haven’t played any games that needed that sort of horsepower in some time.

After taking a look at the IO panel of the Dell, I couldn’t find any monitor hookups that weren’t part of the Geforce card itself, so it looks like Dell tried to save a few bucks and went with a cheap motherboard that didn’t feature onboard video.

One solution would be to replace the card. I don’t really like this idea because it obviously means money out of my pocket.

The other solution I’m considering is removing the power cable to the video card and using remote desktop (actually Teamviewer) on my other system to use the Dell with the bad video card. Will this even work? Does the Dell need a video card since there doesn’t appear to be any onboard video? I’m worried about it not POSTing.

UPDATE: It may not be the video card afterall…. more in the comments.

7 responses so far

7 Responses to “PC Troubles”

  1. Jameson 26 May 2011 at 12:54 pm

    I played around with the system this morning and am reasonable comfortable in determining the problem isn’t the video card, but the rear case fan. The awful sound went away when I booted the machine w/o the fan plugged in, but it immediately returned when I booted the machine with the fan plugged in.

    I ordered a new case fan from Newegg today and it’ll be here in a few days. I hope it fits and works well. 🙂

  2. Railwolfon 27 May 2011 at 12:49 pm

    It’s good that it was just the case fan. How is it mounted to the case?

  3. Jameson 27 May 2011 at 1:35 pm

    Four screws to the back of the case, below the PSU.

  4. Railwolfon 27 May 2011 at 8:39 pm

    Should be fine then. You don’t have to worry about the thickness of the fan with screws. The snap holders are trickier because of that. Good luck 😉

  5. Jameson 28 May 2011 at 9:00 am

    Thanks. The fan should be here Tuesday since it’s the weekend.

  6. Jameson 31 May 2011 at 12:05 pm

    I’m up and running with the new fan. I had a Sunon KD1209PTS2 case fan in my Dell. I replaced it with a Vantec Stealth 92mm case fan. Everything seems to be running well at the moment.

  7. Ericon 03 Jun 2011 at 1:08 pm

    I always love trying to figure out PC problems 😉 Mine is kind of screwy sometimes, too. A few times it’s just frozen for no reason–I put it down to over-heating or something like that, but I’ve got a bazillion fans in it, so not sure…only happens occasionally.

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