I don't know, is the monitor or the graphics card is the problem?

[AiMLEzZz]

Hello, since today morning, I have a strange problem. I was playing Armed Assault and suddenly, the game had frozen and some kind of a blurred grid appeared (on the original picture of the game). "OK, the game had frozen, nothing tragic," I thought. When my PC wasn't answering pressing any keys for few minutes, I pressed the restart button. Alright, Windows were booting and somehow, instead of usual desktop, the screen went black and monitor was showing a message "No signal".

Besides that, if I go to BIOS or anywhere else where my PC let me, there are lots of graphic errors (like strange colors, screen freezing, PC's not answering, nothing is on it's place etc.). I also tried to boot Linux from CD but it ended up the same. I have a graphics card Asus GeForce EN7300GT Silent compatible with my Asus motherboard M2N-SLi Deluxe, CPU AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and 2 GB RAM. My monitor is Neovo F-417 (17", max. resolution 1280x1024).

Anyway, I tried to swap my graphics card, I put there my old no-name 8 MB graphics card, which I found at home. There are no graphic errors anymore, but it cannot probably display pre-set resolution 1280x1024 and it doesn't change to lower and the monitor says "Signal out of range". So I cannot get to Windows nor to Linux desktop and it's all the same even in Safe Mode (desktop doesn't appear, however, I can hear the sound). So I was wandering what the problem is. Do you think that my graphics card is broken (altough, I don't get how it broke down that fast in one moment) or is it something else? Any ideas? I'd be very thankful...

[shadowpr]

Might want to try opening the case and cleaning out the dust.

Also, if that video card has a fan, make sure the fan is clear of all dust bunnies, then see if the fan turns when you turn on the computer.

What is the make and model of your power supply?

[flanzig1]

Your not getting an image is due to the old card trying to work with the drivers from the 7300 card.
And, yes, it sounds like a problem with the 7300 video card. Over heating is a common cause of artifacting due to dust in the heatsink/heatsink coming loose/bad fan. Or the card is just failing.
To be able to get an image, you will need another working Nvidia card.

[>:() - Tiki Man]

actually, you do not have to buy a nvidia card so long as you are not planning on using crossfire. just thought you might like to know, cause ati has some nice cards out there too.

[AiMLEzZz]

OK, I just came back home after a week, so I'll try to clean it up a little.

About the power supply. I was examining it a bit and I think that might be the problem. I have no idea how it got there but some kind of wire is blocking my cooler so it is NOT WORKING . Lol, ok, as I said, I'll try to figure it out and I'll tell you how did it work, thanks...

EDIT (after about 10 minutes): Alright, I cleaned the heat sink, "unblocked" the power supply cooler () and it's working perfectly again, thanks a lot!!! I owe you...

EDIT 2: OK, it worked for about half hour but then I started Armed Assault again and it made completely the same thing as the last time. I don't know maybe it's the game, maybe it's the card, maybe it's both things. Anyway, my friend tried to play the same game and it made his PC completely crash to BSOD (but it worked after restart). So maybe the game is critically bugged but it wasn't never a problem, so what the hell?!