I went out of town for the weekend (left my desktop computer on) and when I came back my monitor would turn on but it wouldn't display a signal (amber light). I've rebooted the computer, and re-connected all of the plugs with no luck. The monitor works when I plug the DVI cable into my laptop.

I use Remote Desktop a lot, but I've never had problems going back to the computer if I needed to use it. In fact, I can access the computer via Remote Desktop just fine.

Any ideas on what might have happened to my video card?

9/3/2008 6:27:13 PM

is there only one output on your vid card? do you have a vga port you could try?

9/3/2008 9:45:14 PM

its got 2 dvi ports and no vga

9/3/2008 9:47:06 PM

are both the dvi ports dead or just one?

do you have any other addon cards in your system? are they working ok?

also, take a look at the motherboard monitor in your bios and look at the voltage coming off the rails - are any of them dead?

you said you could get to it via remote desktop - look in device manager, is it still reporting your video card?

9/3/2008 9:49:09 PM

both of the ports on the video card are dvi, and neither work when connected to my monitor

i can't look at the bios just yet because the monitor won't turn on even during boot-up

in the device manager, it shows 'NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM)' and there's no little yellow exclamation point by it

I had an intern build the desktop for me a year ago, and it's worked perfect. I don't know if it's a good video card or not, but it does just fine for me since I don't play games.

9/3/2008 9:54:42 PM

hrm.

do you have a different machine you can try the card in? or a different card?

trying to determine if it's the slot or the card.

9/3/2008 10:01:29 PM

I don't have a spare video card but I guess I can take the computer apart and try putting it in another slot (if there is one)

my OS is Windows Vista Ultimate 64, but I don't think that has anything to do with it since it doesn't even display anything in the bios during bootup

if the slot/card were bad would the computer still be able to identify it in the device manager?

9/3/2008 10:11:14 PM

I did some research. The video card that's in the computer is a BFG GeForce 6600 GT OC / 128MB GDDR3 / SLI / PCI Express / Dual DVI / HDTV / Video Card. I paid $78 for it.

In purchasing a new video card, is it best to stick with NVIDIA or is ATI good? The two that popped up as a "high" rated model on NewEgg were:

1. ATI 512MB - $43
2. NVIDIA GeForce 512MB - $29

I'm guessing both of these can handle the Aero stuff on Vista. Any opinions on these cards or any other video card?

9/9/2008 8:23:20 AM