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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 10, 2017 15:09:45 GMT
On Saturday the on board VGA port on my pc stopped working. I ordered the cheapest tested Graphics card I could off eBay.
Good news: new graphics card is here.
Bad news: nothing coming out of it!
As previously established, and retested today, lead and monitor are fine, just both ports on PC produce a No Signal message.
So it's either: graphics card is faulty (anyone able to test it in their case) or problem further up stream.
Any ideas?
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 10, 2017 15:15:10 GMT
Have you turned it off and on again?
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 10, 2017 15:19:26 GMT
Several times
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 10, 2017 15:23:12 GMT
Have you used the sonic screwdriver?
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 10, 2017 15:25:23 GMT
Yes and a real one
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 10, 2017 15:34:07 GMT
Have you asked Andu?
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 10, 2017 15:35:21 GMT
This thread is asking Andu and other technically minded types here
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Apr 10, 2017 15:44:49 GMT
What make and spec is your motherboard? Likewise the graphics card.
Just in case it's one of those instances were there are any compatibility issues.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 10, 2017 15:54:01 GMT
I'll have a look in a bit, downstairs on laptop at moment.
A quick google for similar problems indicates dust and motherboard battery have been known to contribute to similar issue, both of which could be a fault here.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 10, 2017 16:22:04 GMT
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Post by Pinwig on Apr 10, 2017 16:30:24 GMT
Is the mobo one that has onboard graphics, so you could use that temporarily to see if a signal comes out that way?
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 10, 2017 16:38:41 GMT
The failure of the motherboard port on sat was what got me buying a new card in the first place
Case cleaned, no difference. Batteries ordered. The time has gone everytime the power's gone off so I can believe that's an issue.
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Post by Pinwig on Apr 10, 2017 16:44:12 GMT
Oh right, well a battery will solve the time issue but that wouldn't usually affect a VGA signal. Odd one. Have you tried booting in safe mode to see if that gets a signal out?
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 10, 2017 16:49:31 GMT
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Post by Pinwig on Apr 10, 2017 16:56:42 GMT
Interesting. Worth a go then. Repeatedly tapping F8 will get you to a boot menu without needing to see the screen, but thinking about it if the bios isn't coming up either then it does sound more deep rooted. I thought it might have been something that changed the VGA output to a resolution the monitor couldn't cope with, but it sounds not. Especially if you've got ports onboard and on a card that aren't working - I checked the card (as you would have done anyway) it looks compatible with that mobo, so maybe it is something odd like the battery.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 11, 2017 8:12:27 GMT
In the meantime I've been sizing up the box for Operation: Data Rescue.
On my list of "things to do" had been move the contents of my data drive, still on the machines original HDD, onto an SSD, like where the machine's OS sits. The HDD is accessible and following a revelation while wrecking the back of the case installing the graphics card yesterday, I think I can get it out and even if I can't it's SATA port is accessible, I've got the cables, I've got the USB interface, got two in fact, so getting the (sizeable) amount of data off the drive and onto a new one using the laptop should be an easy task. In fact I think that even if I get the old machine working again an SSD data drive has elevated itself up the "to do" list.
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Post by Pinwig on Apr 11, 2017 8:32:11 GMT
I've done that sort of operation before too. I'm not sure I trust solid state drives with data just yet, I've had problems with mine that have kept SSD's in the 'useful but untrustworthy' category, so for me it's OS only with them because that's easily replacable.
I think you also have to be careful with the SATA to USB connectors - when my PC died recently I decided to back up the data before sending the machine off (it was under warranty and I couldn't find the fault) and somewhere along the line of doing that the disc got fried and I lost everything on it. It had been fine until I tried to connect it to a laptop to copy data off it. I've also found that with newer operating systems, unless it's just a straight data drive with files on it, you can encounter protection problems. Certainly if you take a Windows 10 harddrive out of a computer and connect it to another to get into the user folder, it won't let you.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 11, 2017 8:48:26 GMT
It's straight data on this particular share. Photos, Music, lots of 2000ad. Try not to use the user directories except for temp storage and things I'm working on.
All the really important data is dropboxed anyway to sync with the laptop.
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Dezzeh
Thunderjet
Wait, what?
Posts: 4,888
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Phil's PC
Apr 11, 2017 21:30:07 GMT
via mobile
Post by Dezzeh on Apr 11, 2017 21:30:07 GMT
For backups, look into something like crashplan, it's a monthly sub but well worth the peace of mind.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 15, 2017 13:10:03 GMT
New batteries are here and made no difference.
Sadly it looks like it might be an ex-motherboard
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Post by Bogatan on Apr 15, 2017 20:21:15 GMT
Im bad at backing up but I do keep all data on a seperate HHD from the OS which is on a SSD. The plan is to back up to two external HHDs.
Photos also remain on the SD card, I know as long term storage they aren't suitable, but it provides a bit of peace of mind.
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Apr 16, 2017 16:36:20 GMT
I use Dropbox as a back up/main save location these days.
Andy
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Post by Pinwig on Apr 16, 2017 18:07:10 GMT
I have a 3TB network drive plugged into the router which is just about big enough to mirror everything (also acts as a media server), but the most important stuff is also on my Onedrive.
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Post by Philip Ayres on May 12, 2017 15:50:06 GMT
In the meantime I've been sizing up the box for Operation: Data Rescue. On my list of "things to do" had been move the contents of my data drive, still on the machines original HDD, onto an SSD, like where the machine's OS sits. The HDD is accessible and following a revelation while wrecking the back of the case installing the graphics card yesterday, I think I can get it out and even if I can't it's SATA port is accessible, I've got the cables, I've got the USB interface, got two in fact, so getting the (sizeable) amount of data off the drive and onto a new one using the laptop should be an easy task. In fact I think that even if I get the old machine working again an SSD data drive has elevated itself up the "to do" list. Should have been! Unfortunately, despite working when I mounted the drive to copy my current 2000ad compilations over, neither hdd or sdd in the machine now wants to talk to the laptop without formatting first! FORTUNATELY I do have a back up on a portable SSD. The PC had been refusing to talk to it but I think that might be more a fault with the PC than the drive as it's happily had an hour long chat with my laptop. The last backup was 60(!) weeks ago, judging by the 2000ad folder but the only things missing are some Who's Round, wasily downloadable, a couple of recent albums, on my MP3 player, and a year's worth of 2000ads, easily donwnloadable again, and their various compilations, oh dear that might be some work to rebuild. |
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Post by The Doctor on May 12, 2017 16:05:20 GMT
Make sure to replace the isolinear chips.
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 23, 2017 13:02:01 GMT
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 26, 2017 10:34:46 GMT
HELLO WORLD! New PC up and running, working my way down the install list!
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 26, 2017 18:56:43 GMT
From FB:
The fight goes well. Most things installed fine. Needed to find a new VGA cable after the in place on proved to be kaput but ..... Attaching by HDMI produced some odd effects - pic looked zoomed - that I couldn't counter in setting on either monitor or pc.
Most software installed. PC currently talking to laptop and copying my Thunderbird settings, directory structure and all. In theory that's a drag and drop job to save me hours of work writing mail rules.
The moment of truth....
OH YES. We love that. Copy one folder - C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\[PROFILENAME] -and brings EVERYTHING over. Address book, how often I want my mail file checked and how long to leave message on server. Superb. We <3 Thunderbird!
All the essential software now on the machine and working, job done. The only real trouble came from ZXSpin (spectrum emulator) which I read isn't compatible and doesn't have a win10 version.
Now into some of the less urgent jobs, namely recovering the SSD and HDD which were in the previous machine. They worked once since it died, I was able to recover the current 200ad compilations folder and some other stuff but I must have done something wrong since then. I'm working my way down a list of options and it looks like a program called MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free 7.0, recommended by the fine people at Roobarb's forum is doing the job, it's certainly finding the files on the SSD.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 27, 2017 22:24:24 GMT
today has been about data recovery.
Everything really important is dropboxed.
Most of the remaining data files were backed up but the backup was 2 years old. I was missing a dozen or so albums, all on my MP3 player, 70 Who's Round, downloadable, and 100 progs/megs, also downloadable. All that was done today.
The progs need reformatting into story compilations which will be a job!
I had,just 2 days ago, deleted my Who Talk CDs from my Laptop not realising they weren't in the backup: a friend has a copy of those though so I won't have to MP3 them again.
The only real loss is the backups for my images for the blog and possibly some photos of Jonathan, but all the major ones were on FB or Flickr. And I may yet get those back if we can salvage the SSD which refuses to read. The recovery program can see files on there but can't tell me what they're called or where they were. I will ask to see if anyone local has better file recovery programs!
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Post by Philip Ayres on Dec 1, 2017 21:48:54 GMT
PC/Monitor combination is doing my head in. The auto position was off twice after waking the PC today, then I ran into a problem with the display settings reverting to a lower resolution. Now I can't get the stupid thing to display at what looks like the correct resolution. I've got close, everything looks vaguely right proportionately BUT there's something off about the font text which is upsetting my eyes and giving me a headache.
Any ideas?
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