Good day,

I am new to this discussion board and not an expert so please excuse anything that I might say that sounds stupid.

I purchased a computer about three years ago. It was a "custom built" Proteva from Staples. It is an office supply store here in Canada. Everything was working fine and then it started just randomly shutting off. The error message when it restarted itself had to do with the ATI graphics driver.

On Boxing Day this year, I bought a new graphics card and all was well until about a month ago.

I would have to restart the machine for updates or becuase it would freeze and when it restarted, the lights on the front of the machine would come on and it would look like it was working but there would be no picture on the monitor. I tried hooking it up to another monitor and no change.

The thing I noticed most was when it did start properly, usually after leaving it off for an hour or so, it would beep when it started. It never beeped when the monitor wouldn't go on.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Dan

<email address snipped>

Dan, quick question.

Are ya currently able to get any picture at all anywhere?

Thanks.

No, I am not. The screen is completely blank. The lights on the front are still yellow (standby mode?)

Dan

Do you see anything on screen while its booting up? If not it sounds like the card not a driver issue. Since during boot up the most basic of drivers is used if it was a software issue you should still see that part of the process.

If you still have your old Video card you can try putting it back in the system. That will let verify the problem is with your new card or its drivers.

If you are able to boot the system up and get a picture with the old card make sure that you completely uninstall any and all software related to the new card. You can then try reinstalling the new card. If after you put it in you are immediately back to no video then I would say your new video card Died. Failure rates on hardware in my experience are actually high initially and then drop off and then start to slowly increase with age. So having it die after a few months is rare but not completely unexpected. Hopefully its still in warrenty and you can get it replaced.