posted
Okay -- I do tech support for a living, so I'm pretty sure I covered all the bases, but I'd like opinions anyway, in case I missed anything.
One of my friends has a 3 year old Gateway PC. Basic stats are 2 ghx Celeron, 256 MB RAM, onboard video -- and a mobo with no AGP slot. She wanted to be able to play EverQuest 2 with a minimum of upgrading, so we went and got her a 1 GB (2x512) RAM upgrade and a PCI GeForce FX5200 budget card. This then would allow her to play the game on "high performance" settings. Not all that great, but not all that bad either. And yes, I verified the stats of the RAM and the video card before we bought them to be sure that they should work with that motherboard.
So anyway, last night she's installing the new stuff and we're talking on the phone with me walking her through it. Assume all appropriate power downs in here. . . .
So she gets the old 256 MB ram stick out, then fills the 2 RAM slots with the new sticks. Adds the video card to PCI slot 1. Easy enough. Hook everything back up and. . . . no video signal.
So we hook the monitor back to the original video port. Same problem.
Tried putting the card in PCI slot 2 (3 is taken up by her DSL modem, and wasn't changed around), removed 1 RAM stick, tried just the other RAM stick to verify that it wasn't a memory problem, and evetually reverted all the way back to the original configuration with her original memory stick back in and the video card not installed either.
Same problem. No video signal. And not just when Windows (XP SP2) starts either, but even where we would try to get into BIOS. Hitting F8 during boot to try to get Safe Mode is no help -- it's still "No Signal" all the way.
Now, I should mention that when she 1st turned it on after the initial RAM and vidcard install that she reported "a funny smell" that she didn't like. And yes, because of that, I was actually pretty skeptical that anything we did would work because:
I think we burned out her video bridge. I really can't see how we would have, but that's the only reason I can think of for a "funny smell" and then no video at all, whether on the card or on the onboard monitor port.
Any other suggestions or thoughts?
Posts: 1323 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Suggestion of possible burning out of a voltage regulator on the motherboard. Those Gateway Mobos can't handle much. Tell her to check for black or discolored spots around all the capacitors and junk. Budget systems are built to be throw away systems. They are never meant to be upgraded (At least not as much as you were planning), even though they say they can be. The good news is, Motherboards of similar (Actually, more like better) capability are cheap as dirt. Well, maybe not cheap as dirt, but better than sending it to Gateway for repairs.Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Are you sure you're only not getting a video signal? Is the system even going through POST?
She could have easily fried a number of components on the motherboard, including the CPU.
It occurs to me that you could easily have overloaded her power supply, depending on how old the machine was.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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It's powering up okay and not giving any POST error beeps, so I'm pretty sure that's okay. The only thing we can detect wrong since the initial "funny smell" is simply the "No Signal" on the monitor. Everything else sounds normal.
Posts: 1323 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
If this is her first time putting stuff in, chances are that she didn't secure the ram securely in its slot and the onboard speaker isn't hooked up?
Also, isn't a pci fx5200 for eq2 not adequate? Haven't played it myself, but I understand that the video demands are rather high.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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