Computer Assistance Needed

[Handbag1992]

Hey everyone, my little brother decided to wait until the computer died on him before coming to me, but I have no idea as to the problem.

Turns out that when viewing youtube videos he would get an error message (he can't remember what it said) and the video box would be fluorescent green. Refreshing the page would cause the screen to display strange shapes and colours before going black, and the computer itself turning off.

Now the thing won't give out a video signal when it turns on. Usually I'd try removing the graphics card and plugging the VGA cable straight into the motherboard, but this motherboard doesn't have video ports.

I'll give what specs I can gather.

Asus P58 Premium motherboard.
4gb DDR2 RAM.
An unidentifiable graphics card (no external indicators)
Power X-2 ATV 450204 Power Supply Unit.
Can't remove the heat sync to get a look at the CPU

 

[Mekado]

Hey everyone, my little brother decided to wait until the computer died on him before coming to me, but I have no idea as to the problem.

Turns out that when viewing youtube videos he would get an error message (he can't remember what it said) and the video box would be fluorescent green. Refreshing the page would cause the screen to display strange shapes and colours before going black, and the computer itself turning off.

Now the thing won't give out a video signal when it turns on. Usually I'd try removing the graphics card and plugging the VGA cable straight into the motherboard, but this motherboard doesn't have video ports.

I'll give what specs I can gather.

Asus P58 Premium motherboard.
4gb DDR2 RAM.
An unidentifiable graphics card (no external indicators)
Power X-2 ATV 450204 Power Supply Unit.
Can't remove the heat sync to get a look at the CPU

It definitely looks like a video card malfunction, the strange colors/shapes etc are common with overheated video hardware.It might also be a motherboard or RAM issue but it's far less likely.Only way to test would be replacing the card, if the mtb dosen't have integrated video you'd have to try and find another card to plug in.

Edit: just re-read that and if the computer fully powers down after the colors and black screen it's a little more likely that the motherboard would be at fault, a video card issue would give you a black screen but no shutdown.It might also be the CPU, overheated CPU would shut down the machine to avoid hardware damage, did you see if the CPU fan was actually working ?

 

[Handbag1992]

Edit: just re-read that and if the computer fully powers down after the colors and black screen it's a little more likely that the motherboard would be at fault, a video card issue would give you a black screen but no shutdown.It might also be the CPU, overheated CPU would shut down the machine to avoid hardware damage, did you see if the CPU fan was actually working ?

All the fans look like they're working, I haven't put thermal paste on the CPU in years though, so maybe this is a still a CPU overheat problem, I'll see if I can remove the heat sync, it one of those ones with really weird clips

Edit: Got the heat sync off, paste and CPU look fine.

 

[Mekado]

Edit: just re-read that and if the computer fully powers down after the colors and black screen it's a little more likely that the motherboard would be at fault, a video card issue would give you a black screen but no shutdown.It might also be the CPU, overheated CPU would shut down the machine to avoid hardware damage, did you see if the CPU fan was actually working ?

All the fans look like they're working, I haven't put thermal paste on the CPU in years though, so maybe this is a still a CPU overheat problem, I'll see if I can remove the heat sync, it one of those ones with really weird clips.

If i understand correctly the computer won't work right even for a few minutes huh ? if it does, you should use a temp monitoring software to see if CPU/GPU are overheating, though i'm not sure your motherboard/CPU supports temperature reporting...

 

[Handbag1992]

If i understand correctly the computer won't work right even for a few minutes huh ? if it does, you should use a temp monitoring software to see if CPU/GPU are overheating, though i'm not sure your motherboard/CPU supports temperature reporting...

It won't give out any video signal, so I can't do much with it.

 

[Mekado]

If i understand correctly the computer won't work right even for a few minutes huh ? if it does, you should use a temp monitoring software to see if CPU/GPU are overheating, though i'm not sure your motherboard/CPU supports temperature reporting...

It won't give out any video signal, so I can't do much with it.

But the computer runs ? that'd point the finger at your video card, you don't have any spare hardware lying around or another computer which you could borrow the video card from ?

Sorry, it's mostly "it could be this or that", the exact error message would have been very helpful

 

[Handbag1992]

If i understand correctly the computer won't work right even for a few minutes huh ? if it does, you should use a temp monitoring software to see if CPU/GPU are overheating, though i'm not sure your motherboard/CPU supports temperature reporting...

It won't give out any video signal, so I can't do much with it.

But the computer runs ? that'd point the finger at your video card, you don't have any spare hardware lying around or another computer which you could borrow the video card from ?

Sorry, it's mostly "it could be this or that", the exact error message would have been very helpful

I completely agree, I was 20 minutes into trying to fix the thing before he even told me there was an error message .

I think I know where I can borrow a graphics card, I'll post again when I have the results.

Thanks for all your help .