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Can a new video card fry my monitor?
I recently changed my video card from a 770GTX to ASUS turbo 1070 today monitor started flickering,a pop sound like something breaking and smoke started coming out of the monitor. Shutdown immediately switched out monitor it won't start up and beeping sound emanated from computer. Changed back to old video card computer worked than I put back new video card the computer worked.
Should I trust the card or will it fry the other monitor too? If the card worked now what could have fried the monitor?
Anyway if something is wrong with the new video card it won't start up and work with the monitor I switched to am I right. The monitor that fried was an old monitor. The one I am using now is about the same age too.
I am at wits end now wondering if this is going to happen again.
Should I trust the card or will it fry the other monitor too? If the card worked now what could have fried the monitor?
Anyway if something is wrong with the new video card it won't start up and work with the monitor I switched to am I right. The monitor that fried was an old monitor. The one I am using now is about the same age too.
I am at wits end now wondering if this is going to happen again.
Comments
What's far more likely is that the old monitor wore out and it's merely a fluke that this happened just after replacing a video card. It's possible that jostling the cables to unplug it from one card and plug it into another was a contributing factor. But the power to run a monitor comes through the power cable, not the monitor cable to connect it to the video card.
So terrified I did something wrong, I guess since the card is working it should be okay and no thunder storms at all in fact no rain at all for awhile.
By the way wanted to ask every night do you leave the computer connected to the power or shut off the power switch I have a power strip that I would shut off every night but lately my son was saying that surge every time could wear down the computer so I after shutting down the computer I have left the power strip switched on. Which is better to do?
If your computer is turned off entirely before you turn off the power strip, that shouldn't be a problem. If it's still running and you're flipping the switch on the power strip rather than telling Windows to shut down, that's very bad. Even so, I'm not sure what you hope to gain by turning off the power strip.
I turn of the computers at night. Not the battery backup unit they are plugged into.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
If a power surge comes, I wouldn't think it would matter much if a surge protector was turned on or off. And I hope your "power strip" is very much a surge protector. If not, then you should get one.
If lightning just jumped from the sky to the ground, even breaking a connection by a fraction of an inch isn't going to do much to deter it. All that you can hope to do is to re-route a surge, not block it. The way that surge protectors work is that they have metal oxide varistors (MOVs) connecting the input and output wires. MOVs are normally very high resistance, so that current normally goes around rather than through them. But if there's a very high current, MOVs suddenly become very low resistance, so that nearly all of the current coming in the input wire goes across the MOV and out the output wire without ever reaching your computer. This capability doesn't depend on the power strip being turned on or off.
Computer power supplies tend to have somewhat analogous capabilities to that. They used to generally have MOVs directly, but modern units often have other components that do about the same thing.
If you're worried about a power surge frying things, the key is to get the computer and everything plugged into it behind the same surge protector. That includes monitors, speakers, networking, and anything else plugged into the computer. If your computer is behind a surge protector, but a monitor power cable is plugged into the wall directly, a lightning strike could readily go through the power cable to fry your monitor, and could go through the monitor cable to the video card to reach the rest of your computer.
Every sound I hear I am jumping and on tenterhooks . Damn hope everything goes well until the new monitor comes.
If the monitor was 10 years old it might have been time to get one anyway. The 1060 can probably push a littler better than the 10 year old monitor can display. Getting a new monitor will probably help the overall upgrade of the video card as you will be able to get a higher resolution and possibly more frames per second.
--John Ruskin
Actually I had a newer monitor but my son took it when he got a new computer and the monitor he got was unable to work with the card he had. So my husband decided to upgrade his monitor to a 27 inch one and give me his monitor which is about 2 years old but the 27 inch monitor was out of stock and may arrive next week. That was how I got stuck using an older monitor.
Today it refused to start at all .So I have to call the Alienware people since it is still under guarantee. He wants to call tomorrow to walk me through removing the memory,hard drive and video card then they will decide hopefully to send someone to fix it.
Do you think when the monitor had that problem it may have damaged my computer in some way?
― George Carlin
Now, it sounds like your comp may be having issues...that could cause monitor problems....So it sounds like you had some power surge issues or something that might of hit both your monitor and comp.
Either way if it is under warranty/guarantee, then you should be set. Just do what the tech people say, they will get it going or not, if they do not they will either have you return it to be worked on or, depending on what warranty you have, send a tech out to look at it.
You can have severe power issues without it being a lightning strike. Why it is always wise to have a surge protector that will help protect from that. Normal power from a city, can and often does, have issues at times with surges and brownouts that can affect electronics.
Anyhow good luck.
I think it's the mother board because there should be a light on the motherboard and there is no light now . There was one I saw it you can see it from the top even after you shut down the computer and unplug there is a light on the motherboard . It was there yesterday but today there is no light. There is no light on the power supply either. But the small switch at the back of the computer (Alienwares have this) near the plug point if you press it there is a light so the power supply is working.
So I think it is the motherboard.
I have a 4 year guarantee up to 2019
I told him the other won't budge and he said use force even if it breaks it's okay!!!!!!! WTF
So I kept trying then accidentally I moved it out and took out the 4 sticks. Then he wanted to remove the cache or something well my Italian sucks plus their pronunciation even when I'm not nervous is difficult for some words. He asked to pull this hexagonal shaped object which I told him was secured by 4 screws and he finally got me to remove that after I insisted screws have to be taken out. I later checked the schematics of the Aurora R4 it was the coolong unit not the cache. Seriously they want to talk you through this and they are clueless or looking at wrong vids.
After testing memory stick he finally said it was either the motherboard or the video card but honestly I do not understand the purpose of getting me to dismantle the pc when I could have caused more damage had I used force when he asked me to. They will send a tech to the house. Why could they not have done that right from the start.
After I shorted out the TV (I did get it repaired by paying a TV repair person), I always make sure my computer and monitors are turned off before plugging anything together.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
The hexagonal object sounds like a heatsink. Not sure what it's on, or what purpose removing it would do
I agree with Iselin (like the new avatar btw) - that's very unusual for tech support to have you digging around in there, only to send the tech out to your house anyway. In fact, I don't know of any tech support that will have you do much more than take the case off your computer, and most won't even do that, as if they tell you to do something, and you do break it, they have to honor it under warranty. It's much cheaper for them to just take the computer into custody and do the troubleshooting directly than if the customer breaks several hundred dollars worth of stuff inadvertently (not saying you did that, only emphasizing that the tech you spoke to was off and likely won't be working there much longer).
Sorry to hear about your computer. I would say, based on everything you've posted here, it's almost certainly not your fault. And I'm glad you have full warranty support!
Also, just on an off chance, do you have some way to test that new video card? Just in case it got fried in this entire process as well, you may still be in the easy vendor RMA/return, rather than having to go through the longer and sometimes more complicated warranty claim.
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Live a lifetime in every minute.
https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/alienware-do-not-perform-your-own-repairs-65786/
Also the first tech I spoke to also 'threatened' to ask me to take apart the same three things so it is not just that tech. What boggles my mind is if they meet someone who has absolutely zero knowledge of even opening the case how can you walk them through this. I mean I know a little bit but if you have a person with completely no experience in ever doing anything like this it is nuts truly.
Is there some quota for these techs oh btw not being facetious or discriminatory but they all have Muslim names 5 techs I spoke to all with Muslim names. I am an Indian from a Muslim country so I recognize the names although I am Hindu myself. They speak good Italian but my son said they were not Italian when he listened in.
Can they really save any money doing this phone support. Before with my other Alienware computer they never asked me to open it up just the usual disconnect press hold the start button for 30 seconds so this is new for me. I cannot see them actually saving any money but my husband said sending someone out is much more expensive in Europe when you outsource the phone support and the tech that comes to the house is much more costly and perhaps even more than the part they replace for Dell.
I'm just praying that my new video card is not a casualty too and that they can fix this soon so that I can put back the new video card before the time to return it to Amazon expires.
I do my own computer repairs and building for many years, and my monitors are 12 years old, Yes they have went out before, but I know how to repair monitors too so that was easy...
Also the smoke depending on the type of monitor you have, should be a very easy fix if you know what you are doing with them obviously this depends on damage that happened to it either way you should unplug it just to be safe. Also don't trust techs to repair your monitor they usually charge more to fix, than what it is to do the actual repair yourself, or buy a new monitor for that matter. Personally I've became pretty good taking apart my full keyboards too, fixing keyboards my family spills junk into, its just for me Electronics aren't that hard anymore, and by (Keyboard) I mean everything not just keys.
As for Alienware & Dell Computers,
Do not buy them, they are flat out pieces of crap especially for customer service and gaming.
Do not buy Alienware, was bought out by Dell...
Neither of these companies use top grade computer parts, me I can build a computer that won't stop working for 10 years+, and the only way it would is if the user doesn't know what they are doing, but when you use a Dell, or pre-built computer, always expect to run into issues software, and hardware. And then if you call in for support you speak to someone who doesn't know shit and is located in another country.
The only thing about Alienware, that might look cool is the cases, but I am seriously telling people "If you ask for (FULL Product specifications) they can't give them to you beyond the basic specs.
Ask what the RAM CAS-Latency is, they can't tell you.
Over half the time at least from the dell computers I have seen the "Ram Itself" is missing the stickers which have the warranty information and sticks on it...
Generally Quality memory will have a warranty sticker on it, which says warranty void if removed "Dell Computers" generally are missing these stickers on their parts because a lot of the stuff they sell people is said to be (Refurbished.) And they don't even make people aware if it is or isn't.
http://www.geil.com.tw/support/warranty If dell used Genuine Parts it would have Limited Life Time Warranty on the memory for example so if it ever failed you could just call the company who made it and get it replaced (FREE) at least I can but this is an example of a company that makes good ram and a Life Time Warranty, You don't get this with dell, and they charge for extended warranty plans too.
https://www.in-win.com/ If you want an expensive computer case, otherwise corsair is pretty good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alienware Alienware bought out by Dell.
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Also just on a note about those UPS System & Power Strips...
The batteries in a UPS generally are changed like every 3-5 years, Failure to do this can also cause damage to your system, and possibly electrical fires depending on how many batteries there are in series but generally one set can do the same if it fails, most UPS systems not sure about newer models but most don't contain a circuit that turns off the charge to the battery in-case of this.
Also you need to make sure your house / outlet is property grounded or the UPS won't do its job.
What IS unusual here is asking a customer who may have no technical knowledge at all nor expertise using basic tools, to start yanking things out of the motherboard. That seems like the type of direction that will make things worse more often than not.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
They will take it away minimum for two weeks /gulp.
So I dragged out my old PC that we bought about the same time as the infamous monitors and it had XP on it and it kept freezing when I tried to open any application so I installed windows 10 on it with watermark (unactivated) using an ISO and bootable pen drive I created with Rufus. Works way better than the slow XP. Will use that until (I hope) I get my PC back, it has an 8800 GTS on it that I upgraded myself 9 years ago. I suppose I can check my Steam games and see which one has cloud sync and can be played with that card.
I hope all this has a happy ending.
But I do hope, as you do, that this has a happy ending.
Although my poor 2 core was churning like its making butter sometimes when it was on XP it kept freezing so badly I had to force it to shutdown and this was what made me decide to get the Windows 10 in the first place. The computer has been lying dormant for like 7 years so I had to update a lot and the XP kept freezing.
I notice the only bad thing about the non activation is the watermark and lack of personalization which means I cannot do the usual Deviant Art rotisserie of images just fixed ones I have to change manually. I suppose you can only get the download when you have a machine that is not on Windows 10 since I can no longer access the page.