[Solved] 1 GB RAM and my Graphic Card fail together?!?

Hello everyone
I am having this problem which I dont understand. I was using a AGP Nvidia 7600 graphic card and 1.5 GB RAM [ 1 GB + 512 GB], but all of a sudden, both the graphic card and 1 GB RAM failed together. When I started my PC, the monitor would just show a black screen, so I removed these two failed components and plugged the monitor cord into the motherboard slot and the PC worked..

So, I am wondering, have the two things really failed and its just a coincidence they failed together or is that by mistake somewhere some settings have been changed which is causing this problem??

PS- My graphic card's fan is still working if that means anything.

What do you guys think is the problem??

What happens when you connect the 1GB RAM and not the GPU?
You should check the RAM with memtest.
RAM usually lasts longer than the GPU.

I tried it both ways, with RAM and no GPU and with GPU but no RAM and it does not work either way.

I also feel this is what happened but I am surprised that my PSU was not affected. And I am not using any UPS at the moment. But, the strange thing is, I have a old GPU Nvidia 5200 AGP card which was resting in the dumps, I tried to see if it works but it did not either, maybe this is also a coincidence

I've seen countless AGP ports that didn't work on old motherboards that suspect got fried by power surges, too. I've yet to see that happen with PCIe.

Power supplies are usually the first thing to get hit and they usually do a good job of protecting the rest of the PC, but not always (especially based on my experiences). Whenever I build a PC for someone, I always include the cost of at least a 500KVa UPS (usually about $40) in the cost of the build. I've gotten very tired of fixing PCs for customers that the PSU fails because they refuse to put their $500-$1000 PCs on a UPS and think a good power strip will do the trick. You'd be surprised how long a PC with even a cheapo $20 PSU will last when it's protected by even a cheap UPS. That said, it's not always the PSU that gets hit. Memory, video cards and/or motherboards and/or their components (like, as you may have experienced, AGP ports) can take the hit without any problems to the PSU. I usually see that when a good quality PSU is in use. They usually survive but pass the surge on the rest of the PC. That's one thing about using cheap PSUs - they'll fail, take the brunt of the hit, and NOT pass the surge on (though I'd not recommend using a cheap one because of that).

I have my OC'd 920 system on a 1600KVa APC box. Holds it for 30 minutes and was well worth the $150, though it's complete overkill for 90% of population (though I'd suspect only 10% of TH readers).

You think Ike was bad in Ohio? I live in Houston and experienced it first hand. It's amazing, though, to think a hurricane can travel 1,000 miles North, over land, and have that kind of effect. I unplugged every computer in the house and moved them away from any windows just to be safe. That was the first storm of any kind I've been through where we'd lost power, but the lightning so was so fierce that every time it hit the lines near the house, the lights would come back on for 5-10 seconds as it charged the lines. This went on for probably 2 hours during the most intense parts of the storm and I was in WEST Houston completely away from the track. We could actually watch the TV for 5-10 seconds every 2 or 3 minutes. Absolutely amazing the power behind that storm.

I do agree, though - definitely don't assume that there's anything wrong with the video card. It could simply have been the AGP port that fried and your card could still be good.

Yeah, it draws power from the AGP port. It depends on what was hit. As Warmon6 said, it can blow caps on the board that affect the AGP port, or it could blow traces that route data from the AGP port to the CPU...or any number of things. I have seen where a card's fans still power up, but not a single video card will work in a blown AGP port any longer. Onboard and PCI cards work, but the AGP port is just dead. It's a lot more common than you think and it can be any number of things. As I'd mentioned, I find it strange that I've yet to see a blown PCIe port, but that could be due to age and better manufacturing quality of newer boards compared to some of the cheapo 423/478/462 boards of the past, especially given the number of MB manufacturers that are no longer around (Soyo, Abit, Shuttle, and countless other no-name brand POSs). Your 7600 could still be fine, but it would require finding someone with an AGP based board that you could test it in. You could also have blown the 7600 and happen to have a dead 5200, but I would NOT recommend borrowing a friend's AGP card to test that theory as you could end up blowing their card, too. Test your 7600 (and/or 5200) if you can, then you'll know whether they're dead or your AGP slot is dead - or both are.

No...there's no way to run any card that's one format (PCI, AGP, PCIe, or god-forbid VLB) on any other slot as there's never been any adapters for that for a number of reasons. 1) the added height of the adapter would mean the card wouldn't fit in any ATX case 2) each port can only support x number of watts and a PCI slot could never provide as much power as an AGP card requires, and, well...you get the idea. :-)

Best answer selected by bubuthemonkeyprince.