PC graphic card woes

For the second time in 2 years, the fan on a new Radeon graphics board in my 2 year old Medion PC (Windows XP), had started to howl. Using low-pressure compressed air to clean it shut it up for about 4 days then it would start its howling again. Nothing – not even a dab of that magical WD40 applied to the underneath of the actual fan, using a microscopically small paintbrush would shut it up.

My PC tower has loads of ventilation, and the tower has lots of airspace between the case and the walls of my office.

When, in May 08, the “new” Radeon started howling, a light slap on the top of the tower would shut it up for a day but the slaps were having less and less result. It was a PCI express card, and unfortunately I didn’t have any spare boards in what I call my “computer store” in the loft. I didn’t have the time to drive the 9 km to the nearest computer store so for the moment we (my husband and I) simply disconnected the little wire going from the graphics board to its fan and I re-installed it.

All went well for 3 weeks. I still hadn’t had the chance to drive 9 km to the nearest computer store for a new board and the Radeon seemed to be working ok.

Then last Friday, I switched the PC on as usual, my desktop with all its icons appeared ok, I clicked on the IE shortcut at the bottom to look for something in google but although the IE window opened, it stayed absolutely empty, no headers, no taskbar, nothing. Suddenly I received a popup warning that an ATI driver couldn’t be found or couldn’t be started up. Immediately after that I got the blue screen of death. I scarcely had time to note down what was causing it, something like “ati2dvag” when the screen went black and computer switched itself off.

That’s odd, I thought.. I tried switching the computer back on but no luck, poor little Medion was dead. I opened the PC and there was a distinct “electrical” smell, not too strong, but I noticed it all the same.

After various tests, I took out the power supply, carefully noting which wired went where, and plugged it in to the mains. Nothing, not a dicky bird… I had also taken out the graphics board and noticed a slight brown discolouration on the underside where the  fan’s heatsink connections were.

So – the graphics board had got too hot, and the over-heating had killed my power supply. I drove out to “Top D”, the computer store in our area, got a new power supply for 29 SFr and a new graphics board (NOT one with a fan but with a large alu heat-sink or whatever they are called), installed them and all is well again.