I think my grapics card broke but can't be sure.

[Jakson]

My motherboard has no vga port (M4A77TD), so when I turned on my computer this morning and nothing showed up on my screen, I was unable to figure out what I should do. The computer sounds like it normally does, and I tried using the dvi port (I usually use hdmi) on a different monitor, so there's that. Any ides what I should try next?

[orinthia]

Can try reseating it and its power plugs (does the card's fan turn on?), or using a different pci-express slot. If you have a spare vid card you know works, use it to see if the slot itself works (don't have to bother with installing it in windows; just see if anything shows up, enter bios, and turn off). You can also hit pause on the keyboard to stop a full load.

[nasomi]

This is why I always turn on remote desktop, so if all else fails I can remote into it.

Computer can easily sound normal when you power it on. If you have speakers plugged in, hit enter as your normally would at startup, enter your password, and have it go to the desktop. Should be able to do that without being able to see from memory. If you get the logon "music" then it's probably the video card.

May be worth while to pick up a spare $10 card from newegg for troubelshooting though.

[Jakson]

Turns out the power plug to the primary hard drive came unplugged (wtf? how?). I'm assuming that had something to do with my 5830 not wanting to display anything, but an old 8500gt worked and showed me a "reboot and select proper device" message. Plugged it back in, put the 5830 in, everything worked. Thanks Orin and Nasomi.

[Celestialone]

I have a question about my old Alienware laptop as well. Since this, I have gotten a Cyberpower PC desktop, but still trying to fix the laptop. Recently while playing FFXIV I have notice a lot of screen tearing and stuttering. My fps has also dropped from 50ish to 10. It's impossible to play like that. Any ideas? It has an integrated video card for normal use, and then switches to Nvidia 580M when gaming.

[Waraji]

I have a question about my old Alienware laptop as well. Since this, I have gotten a Cyberpower PC desktop, but still trying to fix the laptop. Recently while playing FFXIV I have notice a lot of screen tearing and stuttering. My fps has also dropped from 50ish to 10. It's impossible to play like that. Any ideas? It has an integrated video card for normal use, and then switches to Nvidia 580M when gaming.

Laptops are a bitch, and I strongly discourage them for Gaming use. I have a laptop sitting on my desktop that I have, and probably will never end up fixing. I had it blow up on me some years ago after owning it for a while. Originally thinking it was the GPU, I proceeded to order a GPU for it, the same GPU. $100somthing down the drain. As it turned out, the GPU wasn't the problem, it was the Motherboard. Not sure how and don't really care anymore.

It is extremely difficult to diagnose the problem, short of sending the laptop to the original manufacturer and paying up premium fees for repairs/diagnostics. Tread lightly.

[orinthia]

It might be throttling due to heat. Install hwinfo to get a good readout on your temps. http://www.hwinfo.com/files/hw32_430.zip Can start it in sensor only mode after booting the game up. If you're pushing 90C for cpu/gpu, it could be throttling. You'd then maybe try blowing out dust while its off, pointing a fan at it, getting a laptop cooler, or being more adventurous and repasting the heatsinks/dusting insides completely.

Could also be windows updating, antivirus/firewall updating definitions, other things running and hogging resources in the background (ffxiv is a hog itself with drive accesses). You can also check what's using resources and see if something else is isn't releasing things (like maybe something is eating all the ram/cpu time and needs to be killed).