GPU Turns Screen Black

jupewah

Distinguished
Jun 10, 2012
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18,510
I have a Geforce 6800 (I think it's a GT, the label doesn't say) that I got used. It worked fine on my old computer, which ran Ubuntu. A problem arose when I swapped computers though. With the Geforce plugged into my current computer (which has the same motherboard as a Dell Inspiron 530, and now I couldn't figure out what they have.)
Windows boots up normally, although I have static lines going up and down my screen through the boot up phase. When windows takes over from the boot-up sequence the screen remains black. I have tried setting the computer to use the on board graphics card, and then installing the drivers, but my computer says that no graphics card can be detected. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing the problem? The current computer runs Windows 7 if that will help at all.
 
Solution
There should be a physical power plug on the back of the card, might require a 4-pin molex to plug in.
The vertical lines sounds like a dead card, most likely overheated at some point. Considering how cheap a better card would be, I would recommend just purchasing and testing any replacement card. Even a GTX 620 should outperform it.
What 6800gt do you have? is it the pci-e version or the agp one?. It would really help if you can confirm the static lines persisting on the older computer. if it does then it might be a gpu problem, if it doesn't then it might be your new mobo.
 
It's a PCI-E card, and I cannot for the life of me find what kind of card it is. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful, I got it used and the only identification I have to go on is a manufacturers sticker that says "GeForce 6800 D256M." I've tried looking throw images of the series to find a match and the closest thing I found was the GeForce 6800 GT Glacier, but even that isn't quite right.
 
There should be a physical power plug on the back of the card, might require a 4-pin molex to plug in.
The vertical lines sounds like a dead card, most likely overheated at some point. Considering how cheap a better card would be, I would recommend just purchasing and testing any replacement card. Even a GTX 620 should outperform it.
 
Solution