I took out my video card to clean the dust on the fan. When I put it back in to the slot, the monitor displayed random vertical lines on my monitor on bootup. The vertical lines has different colored, and actually each line its in itself multicolored too. Needless to say, I can't figure out what the problem is. I tried the PC with different monitors to see it was my monitor. It appeared on all monitors I tried. I put my graphics card on another PC, and it worked on that other PC. I ALSO used a graphics card from another PC to my own PC and that worked too. I am now baffled at what the problem is since my own gfx card doesn't seem to work in my own machine but works on another. The problem occurs right when the computer is booted. I can't even go into the BIOS since the display is just random colored lines. Could this be a software problem. For example something in the BIOS that is used to load up my videocard? I can't even see the bootup screen where it shows you how much RAM you computer has as well as the clockspeed of the CPU. The screen is all garbled up with random colors. Any help is appreciated. My specs are: Asus A8N-E Athlon64 3500+ OCZ 2x512MB DDR Gigabyte 6600GT 128MB PCI-E Seagate SATA 160GB Enermax 485W PSU Thanks!
Hmm...Have you made sure the Card is seated properly and that nothing has fallen into the PCI-E slot to block connections? If not then just try clearing the CMOS (jumper on motherboard to be changed or take out the battery for a short period, 20 minutes for example)...
I just tried something new. I tried the graphics card on my friend's PC who has the exact same motherboard as me. It DOESN'T work on his motherboard either (we both have the Asus A8N-E). The PC of another friend that I tried which worked was a Dell machine. Could it be that something on my graphics card is messed up when used on Athlon motherboards and it works on an Intel motherboard? Should I RMA my graphics card? Thanks.
By the way, I have tried resetting my CMOS to no avail, and I have reseated the card many many many times. I even tried using compressed air to blow into the PCI-E slot to ensure there was nothing stuck in there.
Is it possible to damage the card such that it works on one type of motherboard but not another type? Do different motherboards use different pins to access the card?
Sounds like you've damaged your card by cleaning it. Either you didn't take precautions to stop ESD or you've physically damaged it I'm afraid. Try a different card just incase though.
