Hi,
I seemingly damaged my dell dimension 8200 during a recent shipping. The
graphics card NV11 and sound card detached from the motherboard during
shipping and bounced around in the tower. When I plug in the computer, I
don't see any display on the monitor and the hard drive light in the
front of the tower don't light up. The hard drive is working fine (I
took it out and tested it as an external drive).
Problem: I don't have another computer so that I can swap components to
troubleshoot effectively.
Possible solution: is there a cheap graphics card that someone can
recommend that I can buy and test? Is there any way to troubleshoot my
machine?
I will really appreciate any help.
Thanks.
Do you want to do any gaming? I ask because it could be
time to upgrade the video anyway if this is the case, and
you might consider just buying the replacement card you want
if the present one is dead, returning the card and accepting
the restocking fee for doing that if the system is still
inoperable. Just buy from someplace with a good return
policy like
http://www.newegg.com
Otherwise, without another computer you might find it most
time effective to see if a local shop will do some parts
swapping for a nominal bench fee... which could depend on
the going rates in your area but might be as low as $50.
This is if you have no friends with a spare system they're
willing to put to the task.
If the video card is dead it will prevent the system from
POSTing, so it would not necessarily be out of the ordinary
for the HDD to not be accessed, but with parts bouncing
around inside during transit it is also conceivable that
more damage was done, particularly to the motherboard. If
you haven't yet, you might take a strong light and inspect
the board, and if a different video card doesn't resolve the
problem then take the board out of the case for a better 2nd
inspection.
As per your request about a cheap graphics card, where do
you prefer to buy it? There are too many options to think
about on ebay, you could just go to the respective category
and sit it out until you see a deal on something. As for
new hardware, there are the mainstream hardware websites
offering low end AGP 4X-8X cards like this,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814153029
or surplus computer parts sites offering other alternatives
like (well actually there are far too many sites offering
old stock of AGP cards but a few examples are):
This is not so different from your NV11 (Geforce2 MX):
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MX440-32MB&cat=VCD
(or see any of their other cards under the "AGP 64MB Video
Cards" heading (or the corresponding AGP 128MB heading).
If you have a free PCI slot you could even (temporarily, for
testing) use a PCI card, that while even cheaper, will be
less functional and/or lower performance in this cheapest
price range.
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ATI-RAGEXL-8M&cat=VCD
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ATI-RAGELT-8MB&cat=VCD
As for PCI cards, just to see if the system will POST and
run (ignoring regular use at high resolution and bit depth)
you could even see if a local mom & pop computer shop has
some ancient PCI video card for somewhere betweeen $0 and
$5, because they end up throwing them away when old systems
get dumped there. If you use a PCI card, just make sure you
have removed your questionable AGP card.
You might also try clearing CMOS before plugging the AC
power in, or if there is no clear CMOS jumper, pull the
battery out for 10 minutes.
