Legit Reviews

Here is the situation. Last night my cousins computer shut off and wouldn't turn back on. This morning I picked it up and tried it with the side panel off and the fan twitched then nothing. I unplugged the drives tried it again and I saw sparks from the gfx card so I know its toast. Tried a old fire gl pci card I get the gfx card bios flash and then a flashing cursor and that's it. I reset the cmos and got the same thing. Is it possible that a old gfx card wont work in a new computer?

System specs
Asus m3a mobo
amd x2 6400
2 x 1gb ocz gold
Radeon x1300 gfx card (toast)
fire gl pci gfx card
Ultra xconnect psu (12.3v no load and 5.3v no load)

I do get a good post beep with the fire gl but cant access the bios so I am pretty sure the mobo is still good but at the moment I'm not sure of anything.
Any suggestions

seeing sparks inside a computer is not a good sign.

Where were the sparks coming from on the video card?

If the motherboard is bad and shorting out the video card you'll just blow up every card you put in there... So you are running a PCI card right now since the PCIe card blew up and are just getting a cursor... Man I'm not sure what to tell you as that could be several things.

Anyone else have any ideas on this one?

Well I don't know if the mobo is bad or if the gfx card was bad. With drives plugged in I got the fan to jump then nothing. When I unplugged the drives it sparked during boot. I think that I am going to try the all the other parts in my phenom 2 rig to make sure that they work. I am hesitant to do that and risk blowing that system. Yes right now I am just running the pci card and getting post good and a cursor.

Aparently the fire gl cards wont work in that rig or they are both bad. I put in an older matrox pci card and it booted right up. So I think the radeon 1300 just took a crap on me.

XstollieX wrote: With drives plugged in I got the fan to jump then nothing. When I unplugged the drives it sparked during boot.

What probably happened. All power supplies see the short, and cut off power. In your case, the combined load of disk drives and the short cause the power supply to cut off faster. Without the drives, more current passed through the shorted graphics card - therefore sparks.

Complete nonsense was the post of a motherboard shorting out the graphics card. Motherboard can only short the power supply. Even with the simplest electrical knowledge, anyone would know that. That post cited as an example of so many who will post without even introductory electrical knowledge.

Where was the sparking from? A useful fact. Was it due to a stray metal fragment? Or did a manufacturing defect cause internal semiconductor or passive component failure? Some parts on that card can be replaced - and the card will work just fine. Just another option available to you.

never mind teach me for not reading every post before leaving a comment

My agp card was burned 2 weeks ago, smell something burning from inside the casing and i switched off the power and open up the casing, it from the agp card, so i assumed its burned. Claimed the warranty and the new card i received today, fixed it in to the slot and got everything connect but when i turn on the computer, the power was on but the card not, the fan are not moving. Is it lack of power supply or the agp slot are damaged?

My system
Intel Pentium 4 2.6 mghz
1.25MB DDR RAM
P4VMM2 mobo with intergrated S3 graphic
ATX 550W PSU
Window XP SP3

Your video card going probably took out your motherboard too.

My friend had the same issue before. He highly recommended this site(supportrix.com).