Good evening everyone,
First of all let me thank you beforehand for your time on this and for your replies! I am not that hardware illiterate but I am just afraid to break anything and have limited hardware interaction experience.
I built 2 PCs so far and both ran great but whenever I had issues with them - these issues were hw related. I have safe surfing habits and am an avid gamer so I know the software side of things but when it comes to hardware, I'm as green as anyone.
I'll try to make this short and not waste your time!
I built my current PC in 2011. It's an i5 2500k / GTX 560 Ti EVGA / AsRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 / Corsair Vengeance 8Gb DDR3 1600 with a power supply that can handle them all in the form of a 500W Antec EarthWatts. I run Windows 7 64bit SP1.
I never had any issues with it, until 2 days ago when after I got out of Guild Wars 2 I started VLC player to watch a show and 2 minutes in, my PC crashed.
Tried restarting but after the Windows logo the screen would turn off and act like there was no signal coming in.
Tried going into Safe Mode and it worked so I ruled out the mobo. My main concern at this time became the GPU as I had artifacts present on the Windows logo splash screen as well as in the UEFI setup (that's the BIOS for my mobo) - on the Windows logo splash screen there were large green lines covering the screen, then the Windows logo splash would come on and after that the monitor would turn off.
I think the CPU is fine as the fan is turning and it seems to be ok.
Considering I have an i5 CPU, I thought today after I came home from work, to run graphics onboard the CPU. I checked the instructions for the BIOS, went in and changed it to "Onboard" but now after I reset the PC or start it up, NOTHING shows up.
This is why I come to you guys, hoping and praying for a solution. Everything in my PC is out of warranty atm and money is tight. The only thing that could save me is the fact that the GPU might have another year of warranty due to EVGAs warranty - the reseller I bought it from said they only give 2 years but that they will ask EVGA for my card to see.
I sent EVGA an email earlier myself and am waiting for a reply but from what Ive seen on their website, it seems that my GPU is covered for at least 3 more months.
Anyway - can you please let me know what the cause for all my hardship is/ could be? and more importantly, how can I get the screen to turn on again so that I can at least enter BIOS (or UEFI as it's called for my mobo)?
Should I just unplug the GPU and start the pc without it plugged in? Will that trigger the CPU onboard video to turn on? or is this something that has to be done in a service, where they can swap parts until they get it working again?
I have pictures on my pc as well as screenshots from games / configs / settings/ etc that literally took me years and years to get right and I would like to save them before anything drastic has to happen.
My apologies for the long textwall and again, I am grateful for your input and suggestions!
First of all let me thank you beforehand for your time on this and for your replies! I am not that hardware illiterate but I am just afraid to break anything and have limited hardware interaction experience.
I built 2 PCs so far and both ran great but whenever I had issues with them - these issues were hw related. I have safe surfing habits and am an avid gamer so I know the software side of things but when it comes to hardware, I'm as green as anyone.
I'll try to make this short and not waste your time!
I built my current PC in 2011. It's an i5 2500k / GTX 560 Ti EVGA / AsRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 / Corsair Vengeance 8Gb DDR3 1600 with a power supply that can handle them all in the form of a 500W Antec EarthWatts. I run Windows 7 64bit SP1.
I never had any issues with it, until 2 days ago when after I got out of Guild Wars 2 I started VLC player to watch a show and 2 minutes in, my PC crashed.
Tried restarting but after the Windows logo the screen would turn off and act like there was no signal coming in.
Tried going into Safe Mode and it worked so I ruled out the mobo. My main concern at this time became the GPU as I had artifacts present on the Windows logo splash screen as well as in the UEFI setup (that's the BIOS for my mobo) - on the Windows logo splash screen there were large green lines covering the screen, then the Windows logo splash would come on and after that the monitor would turn off.
I think the CPU is fine as the fan is turning and it seems to be ok.
Considering I have an i5 CPU, I thought today after I came home from work, to run graphics onboard the CPU. I checked the instructions for the BIOS, went in and changed it to "Onboard" but now after I reset the PC or start it up, NOTHING shows up.
This is why I come to you guys, hoping and praying for a solution. Everything in my PC is out of warranty atm and money is tight. The only thing that could save me is the fact that the GPU might have another year of warranty due to EVGAs warranty - the reseller I bought it from said they only give 2 years but that they will ask EVGA for my card to see.
I sent EVGA an email earlier myself and am waiting for a reply but from what Ive seen on their website, it seems that my GPU is covered for at least 3 more months.
Anyway - can you please let me know what the cause for all my hardship is/ could be? and more importantly, how can I get the screen to turn on again so that I can at least enter BIOS (or UEFI as it's called for my mobo)?
Should I just unplug the GPU and start the pc without it plugged in? Will that trigger the CPU onboard video to turn on? or is this something that has to be done in a service, where they can swap parts until they get it working again?
I have pictures on my pc as well as screenshots from games / configs / settings/ etc that literally took me years and years to get right and I would like to save them before anything drastic has to happen.
My apologies for the long textwall and again, I am grateful for your input and suggestions!