Peenie Wallie: Video Card Out Again

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May 04, 2008

Video Card Out Again

When I made it down into the computer room this morning, I discovered that my Dell Dimension 4550 2400Mhz server is having video problems again. This is interesting, because I've had video problems on this server before. The last time was when Jennifer and Allie were singing into a USB microphone when the video card failed in a big way, causing the computer to shut down and refuse to boot. Only by removing the video card was I able to get the computer to boot up again. When I replaced the video card then, I noticed that the fan was frozen in place on the old nVidia GeForce 4 64Meg DDR Ti4200 AGP video card, so I assumed that caused the problem.

I ordered a new Nvidia Geforce 4 Ti4200 128MB AGP video card off of ebay and shoved it in and I was off to the races.

This time, however, is different because yesterday I was sitting at my computer and heard some alarming "pops" coming from an undetermined location, but from the general area behind the computer experiencing video difficulties. Now, I suspect that what I heard was electricity arcing caused by extremely low humidity.

I do not have a hygrometer in my computer room, but I'm going to get one. The recommended ambient temperature range for a computer room is 68° to 75°F . The recommended ambient relative humidity range is between 45% and 55%.

"If the relative humidity is too low, computer equipment becomes susceptible to electrostatic discharge (ESD) which can cause damage to sensitive components."

So, I believe what happened yesterday was I had some electrostatic discharge occurring in the cmoputer room. That's my best guess at this point, anyway.

I have turned off and unplugged my computer for now, in an attempt to completely draw down any residual current in the computer or the computer's onboard capacitors. I seem to recall that when I called Dell last time, they had me unplug the power cable and hold in the power button for 30 seconds while the computer was unplugged to drain all of the remaining energy from the machine. I know it sounds kind of hoaky, but it worked. (The Dell computers also have a series of lights number 1-4 on the back that indicate the following

just 3
processor malfunction/failure
3 and 4
memory (RAM) is detected but has malfunctioned
2 and 4
a possible graphics card error
2 and 3
floppy or hard drive failure
2, 3 and 4
usb malfunction
just 1
no memory (RAM) is detected

Well, the computer boots up fine, but still no video. Looks like I'm in the market for another video card. Doh!

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