Damn, Bugger and Blast, AKA Pop Goes The Graphics Card
So there I am, last night, having just patched Eve Online and just pottering about on two of the accounts, when all of a sudden the monitors go blank and shut down. Yes, both of them, simultaneously, and with no error messages or warnings whatsoever. Dead screens.
Oh, poo.
After a small amount of prodding, poking, turning it off and on again, the usual, it turns out the graphics card has completely gone the way of the Norwegian Blue. Bugger.
So cue mad dash out this morning to get a baseline replacement for it. Now it wasn't top line card (GeForce 7600GS) so I was after the cheapest NVidia card I could lay my hands on. The lovely people at Yo-Yo Tech furnished me with a shiny new GeForce 8500GT card with 1GB onboard RAM. Nice. £40. Even nicer.
It's all installed, and thankfully it's proven that the old graphics card and not any important parts on the motherboard had failed. So far so good, with all the latest drivers and software installed. Might have to see how it copes with Eve, although I think I'll see if I can monitor it's core temperatures for a short while, just to make sure that Eve isn't what killed the old card.
Oh, poo.
After a small amount of prodding, poking, turning it off and on again, the usual, it turns out the graphics card has completely gone the way of the Norwegian Blue. Bugger.
So cue mad dash out this morning to get a baseline replacement for it. Now it wasn't top line card (GeForce 7600GS) so I was after the cheapest NVidia card I could lay my hands on. The lovely people at Yo-Yo Tech furnished me with a shiny new GeForce 8500GT card with 1GB onboard RAM. Nice. £40. Even nicer.
It's all installed, and thankfully it's proven that the old graphics card and not any important parts on the motherboard had failed. So far so good, with all the latest drivers and software installed. Might have to see how it copes with Eve, although I think I'll see if I can monitor it's core temperatures for a short while, just to make sure that Eve isn't what killed the old card.