Video output vanishes and it isn't the video card... suggestions?
- by Ira Baxter
I have a high-end dual processor Dell workstation that operated for several years without problem. Recently, the video output has gone flaky, in the sense that after 2-3 days, it loses synch with the monitor (sometimes you can still see a hashed-mess of the what you expect to see on the screen). Poking at the keyboard, and accessing the file system on the machine from over the network, indicates that the machine is running fine and its just the video. A reboot fixes the problem... for another day or two. This in effect makes the machine unusable.
So, I replaced the video card with an exact duplicate bought from e-bay. (I checked after the dupe arrived to be sure, yep, same model number).
I still get the same behavior.
So unless I believe that both video cards are broken the same way, I have to beleive this is a problem with the motherboard/power supply, neither of which I am inclined to replace. The only other possibility I can think of is a Windows update to the graphics driver.
How would I check for this? Anybody had a similar problem?
Otherwise we're junking what used to be a perfectly good machine. (Another couple of hours of more wasted effort and that's it in terms of economics anyway).
