Old PC Troubleshooting Help and Video Card Advice

John Kimble on 21/07/2022 - 22:29

Hi,

Hoping for some assistance, been out of the desktop PC and components game for a while…

I have an old PC I'm trying to get working again. The thing is it is not getting past the POST stage? It sounds like I get one long beep and two short beeps, when I google the motherboard, it says that means video card issues. So I take out the video card and I get the same beeps, so that seems to confirm it, right?

What new video card can I get? The motherboard is a gigabyte ga-ep45-ds3l

I just want to get it working, not likely to do anything intensive, but I assume any entry level card from now would be the same or better than my old one? Would that be correct?

I'm thinking cheapest finest PCIE card? Ie under $100? Any suggestions?

It's in a small Antec case, the current one (ASUS 9600GT) barely fits length wise if that matters. https://files.ozbargain.com.au/upload/190487/97134/20220721_…

The current video card only has DVI, I have no DVI cables or monitors anymore, but when I use a DVI to HDMI adapter the monitor says no signal.

Or should I just take it somewhere for troubleshooting? Any ideas what that would cost? Ballpark amount?

TIA,
DJK

PS - Bonus points if someone can tell me if that 2 pin black and blue wire connected to the video card is meant to be connected to something???

Computing Computer Desktop Computer

Comments

  • Hybroid on 21/07/2022 - 22:40
    +2

    It's an Intel setup so, depending on processor, you may not actually need a graphics card to get a video signal, can probably use onboard graphics. Does the motherboard have any video ports? If not then something like a GT 730 (even used) should suffice purely for the HDMI output.

    Frankly this doesn't seem worth investing in, especially if it's a Core 2 Duo processor (which does not have on-board graphics). You'll need a full clean and to refresh the thermal paste as well.

    The black and blue wire looks like a standard fan cable to you know, power the fan on the GPU which is probably why it's fried. Either that or the amount of dust in the case.

    • John Kimble on 21/07/2022 - 22:46

      There's no video ports on the motherboard that I can see.

      I can't remember what processor it is :( I want to say i5 or i7, but it could be a core 2 duo 😔

      TBH I don't mind chucking it, it's been out of action for many years now. But I want to see if there are any files/photos on the hard drives worth keeping, but I don't even have another PC to hook the drives up to.

      • Hybroid on 21/07/2022 - 22:51
        +3

        In that case, you are much better off getting a hard drive dock with USB to whatever laptop etc you do have and slotting them in one by one to read contents.

        https://www.amazon.com.au/WAVLINK-Universal-Docking-Function…

        https://www.amazon.com.au/FIDECO-Dual-Bay-External-Duplicato…

        https://www.amazon.com.au/Wavlink-External-Docking-Station-F…

        Or even a smaller cheaper adapter

        https://www.amazon.com.au/Converter-External-Universal-Funct…

        • John Kimble on 21/07/2022 - 22:55

          The only thing I have apart from a work laptop, tablets and phone is a 2010 macbook pro that runs like a dog…would that still do it?

          • Hybroid on 21/07/2022 - 22:57
            +1

            @John Kimble: Yep, anything with a USB port running below:

            Support Windows XP/Vista/7/ 8/8.1/10, Linux, Mac OS 10 or higher.

      • whatwasherproblem on 21/07/2022 - 22:57
        +1

        When was the last time you fired up the drives? Bit rot is a real thing, and drives that have been untouched and degrading for a decade or more are probably not going to have too much recoverable data on them I'd imagine. And it's only further compromised if you're going to be hitting them with attempted disk reads from decade-old software running on decade-old hardware. Pull the drives out and hook them up externally like the other guys have suggested if you want the best chance of recovering things.

        • John Kimble on 21/07/2022 - 23:02

          ~ 8 years? With me trying to boot it every few years hoping for a miracle 😂

          Are the files not going to be encrypted or something? Or I can just plug them into the macbook like an external drive using one of those things Hybroid linked above?

          • whatwasherproblem on 21/07/2022 - 23:20
            +1

            @John Kimble: Unless you set up the encryption yourself, then no. The drives will likely be formatted FAT32/NTFS which should be readable from a mac (and if not, there are tools that can let you read them). But yeah, fingers crossed it's as easy as just plugging it in and reading the contents.

            • John Kimble on 21/07/2022 - 23:32

              @whatwasherproblem: I vaguely remember encryption…but not sure if it was this PC or the one previous…or I just read about it…

              • whatwasherproblem on 21/07/2022 - 23:37
                +1

                @John Kimble: If it is encrypted and you remember the passphrase then you should still be able to get in, assuming bit-rot hasn't wrecked the drive too hard.

                I'm imagining that it would've been running WIndows 7 at the latest (and probably OEM), so any disk encryption would've been specifically set up by yourself. WIndows 7 (and earlier) wouldn't have encrypted the drives by default.

      • KSMLJ on 21/07/2022 - 22:58
        +1

        The good news is that your drives are SATA, not IDE, so it's pretty easy to pull them out and hook them up externally.

  • HairyChickens on 21/07/2022 - 22:43

    That psu looks dodgy af.

    Psu cooked the PC maybe?

    • John Kimble on 21/07/2022 - 22:47

      Why does it look dodgy? All the fans are going, lights etc

  • whatwasherproblem on 21/07/2022 - 22:50
    +1

    I have an old PC

    You weren't kidding. Geezus.

    I say write it off at this point, mate. Scrap 'er for junk metal.

  • skid on 21/07/2022 - 22:52

    Take all of the RAM out and see if a POST screen appears. If it does, put one RAM stick back and retry. If no POST screen appears, sell the RAM and maybe CPU on ocau and throw away the rest.

  • trex on 21/07/2022 - 22:53
    +1

    that is a SPDIF header and you connect a 2 pin SPDIF cable from that to the one on a sound card, and then you can pass audio over the HDMI connection.

    https://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/86864-nvidia-gefor…

    • John Kimble on 21/07/2022 - 22:57

      Ah cool. Yeah, no sound card installed on this PC.

      • trex on 21/07/2022 - 23:07
        +1

        Your motherboard has a SPDIF Output. Check page 21, connector 14.

        • John Kimble on 21/07/2022 - 23:09

          Ah yes, that seemed to be the only one it fit into, but I wasn't sure. 😂

  • jaffar on 22/07/2022 - 00:58
    -2

    First thing I would do would be to replace the CMOS battery. A bad or dead CMOS battery on an older mobo will throw plenty of errors (not booting is one of them). Definitely worth a shot before you start fiddling around with the other components and seems quite probable that it's dead if it's an old computer. To replace: remove plugs/ram/etc from mobo, replace CMOS with a $2 CR2032 battery, plug back everything and see whether that works.

    • garetz on 22/07/2022 - 01:09

      all cmos battery does is save the bios data, it just resets it back to defaults every time you power the computer up. It will not throw errors or give booting issues.

      • jaffar on 22/07/2022 - 01:30

        https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/3wn2d8/discussion…

        Sure most of the time the CMOS might not be causing problems but for $2 why not rule it out? It's an old PC with most probably a dead CMOS battery. A reset/replacement takes 2 minutes and rules out the uncommon but not unheard of situation that the battery is causing issues.

  • OMGJL on 22/07/2022 - 01:25
    +1

    Your mobo " ga-ep45-ds3l" is socket 775,

    after that there was 1156, then 1155, 1155v2, 1150, 1150v2, 1151, 1151v2, 1151v3,1151v4, 1200, 1200v2, 1700………….

    It roughly take intel 1.5 years or so per socket/generation upgrade.

    You probably should just throw the PC altogether. It's not worth fixing, especially not worth spenidng another $100 on it.

    build a PC with $100 worth of 2nd hand parts will perform wayyyyyyy better than if your old PC (if it's working).

  • randomusername2017 on 22/07/2022 - 21:07

    Similar gigabyte board here - try reseating the memory and/or single module in dimm 1.

  • John Kimble on 19/08/2022 - 10:03
    +1

    Haha, found the invoice from September 2008!

    https://files.ozbargain.com.au/upload/190487/97689/screensho…

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join