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Can a new video card fry my monitor?

cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,067
edited March 2017 in Hardware
I recently changed my video card from a 770GTX to ASUS turbo 1070 today monitor started flickering,a pop sound like something breaking and  smoke started coming out of the monitor. Shutdown immediately switched out monitor it won't start up and beeping sound emanated from computer. Changed back to old video card computer worked than I put back new video card the computer worked.

Should I trust the card or will it fry the other monitor too? If the card worked now what could have fried the monitor?
 Anyway if something is wrong with the new video card it won't start up and work with the monitor I switched to am I right. The monitor that fried was an old monitor. The one I am using now is about the same age too. 

I am at wits end now wondering if this is going to happen again.


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Comments

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347
    It's exceedingly unlikely that the new card did something to push the monitor out of spec and fry it.  I suppose that some sort of weird electrical fault is theoretically possible, but I've never heard of a video card frying a monitor like that while functioning normally.  If your house just got struck by lightning or some such, then that no longer counts as functioning normally.

    What's far more likely is that the old monitor wore out and it's merely a fluke that this happened just after replacing a video card.  It's possible that jostling the cables to unplug it from one card and plug it into another was a contributing factor.  But the power to run a monitor comes through the power cable, not the monitor cable to connect it to the video card.
  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,067
    Thank you Quizz you helped me a lot I am so relieved I was checking this thread like a loon. 

    So terrified I did something wrong, I guess since the card is working it should be okay and no thunder storms at all in fact no rain at all for awhile.

    By the way wanted to ask every night do you leave the computer connected to the power or shut off the power switch I have a power strip that I would shut off every night but lately my son was saying that surge every time could wear down the computer so I after shutting down the computer I have left the power strip switched on. Which is better to do?
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  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347
    I turn my computer off at night, but I leave the UPS that it is plugged into turned on.  If I turn off the UPS, then for whatever reason, the battery is completely drained when I turn it back on.

    If your computer is turned off entirely before you turn off the power strip, that shouldn't be a problem.  If it's still running and you're flipping the switch on the power strip rather than telling Windows to shut down, that's very bad.  Even so, I'm not sure what you hope to gain by turning off the power strip.
  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,067
    Okay got it no I would shut down the computer completely through windows than the power strip I do that just in case there is a power surge during the night while I'm asleep but if does drain the battery or cause wear and tear with the power supply each time I turn on the power strip and then turn on the computer  then i will leave the power strip on. Thank you again
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  • Octagon7711Octagon7711 Member LegendaryPosts: 9,000
    Over the years I've only had one monitor go bad.  Research discovered that it was a problem with that model as they used cheap capacitors which died.  Changing them fixed the problem.  Someone had put up step by step directions on the net.

    I turn of the computers at night.  Not the battery backup unit they are plugged into.  

    "We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa      "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."  SR Covey

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347
    cheyane said:
    Okay got it no I would shut down the computer completely through windows than the power strip I do that just in case there is a power surge during the night while I'm asleep but if does drain the battery or cause wear and tear with the power supply each time I turn on the power strip and then turn on the computer  then i will leave the power strip on. Thank you again
    I have a UPS, which has a battery in it, so that if the power goes out, the battery can kick in and the computer keeps running.  It sounds like you don't have a UPS, so it won't have a battery.  Batteries sufficient to run a desktop are big and heavy, so if you've got a UPS, it's going to weigh at least several pounds from the batteries alone.

    If a power surge comes, I wouldn't think it would matter much if a surge protector was turned on or off.  And I hope your "power strip" is very much a surge protector.  If not, then you should get one.

    If lightning just jumped from the sky to the ground, even breaking a connection by a fraction of an inch isn't going to do much to deter it.  All that you can hope to do is to re-route a surge, not block it.  The way that surge protectors work is that they have metal oxide varistors (MOVs) connecting the input and output wires.  MOVs are normally very high resistance, so that current normally goes around rather than through them.  But if there's a very high current, MOVs suddenly become very low resistance, so that nearly all of the current coming in the input wire goes across the MOV and out the output wire without ever reaching your computer.  This capability doesn't depend on the power strip being turned on or off.

    Computer power supplies tend to have somewhat analogous capabilities to that.  They used to generally have MOVs directly, but modern units often have other components that do about the same thing.

    If you're worried about a power surge frying things, the key is to get the computer and everything plugged into it behind the same surge protector.  That includes monitors, speakers, networking, and anything else plugged into the computer.  If your computer is behind a surge protector, but a monitor power cable is plugged into the wall directly, a lightning strike could readily go through the power cable to fry your monitor, and could go through the monitor cable to the video card to reach the rest of your computer.
  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,067
    I checked my old receipts and that monitor was 10 years old and since I bought two of them one for myself and my husband and now I am using the other ten year old one while waiting for my new monitor to arrive.

    Every sound I hear I am jumping and on tenterhooks . Damn hope everything goes well until the new monitor comes. 
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  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347
    If a ten year old computer part dies, it's usually time to say, if you got ten good years out of it, then it had a nice life.
  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,786
    Did you possibly use a different input when you plugged the new video card in.  It might have been something with the input that used.  If not, I can't think of a reason why the video card would pop the monitor. 

    If the monitor was 10 years old it might have been time to get one anyway.  The 1060 can probably push a littler better than the 10 year old monitor can display.  Getting a new monitor will probably help the overall upgrade of the video card as you will be able to get a higher resolution and possibly more frames per second. 

    “It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

    --John Ruskin







  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,067
    edited March 2017
    The video card was put in on Wednesday and I used a HDMI to VGA converter and connected it to the VGA slot on the monitor. As this was an old monitor there was no HDMI slot. The incident happened a few days later on Saturday.

    Actually I had a newer monitor but my son took it when he got a new computer and the monitor he got was unable to work with the card he had. So my husband decided to upgrade his monitor to a 27 inch one and give me his monitor which is about  2 years old but the 27 inch monitor was out of stock and may arrive next week. That was how I got stuck using an older monitor.
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  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,067
    Bad news , I think the monitor catching fire has damaged the computer. It started having trouble after the incident and having hardware failure the ' cache hierarchy error processor'  WHEA  in the event viewer after it starts up. It went on everyday when I started the computer. After it comes on it worked fine.

    Today it refused to start at all .So I have to call the Alienware people since it is still  under guarantee. He wants to call tomorrow to walk me through removing the memory,hard drive and video card then they will decide hopefully to send someone to fix it.

    Do you think when the monitor had that problem it may have damaged my computer in some way?
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  • ScotchUpScotchUp Member UncommonPosts: 228
    You may want to look at the warranty you have on it through Alienware!. I know some computer companies would void warranty's (Gateway was bad with this). I wouldn't have said anything about the old monitor and it catching fire. I heard good things with Alienware so I hope you don't run into any BS that would have voided the warranty! 
    “The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”
    George Carlin
  • DarLorkarDarLorkar Member UncommonPosts: 1,082
    I do not think anything you do with a monitor would cause issues. 

    Now, it sounds like your comp may be having issues...that could cause monitor problems....So it sounds like you had some power surge issues or something that might of hit both your monitor and comp. 

    Either way if it is under warranty/guarantee, then you should be set. Just do what the tech people say, they will get it going or not, if they do not they will either have you return it to be worked on or, depending on what warranty you have, send a tech out to look at it.

    You can have severe power issues without it being a lightning strike.   Why it is always wise to have a surge protector that will help protect from that. Normal power from a city, can and often  does, have issues at times with surges and brownouts that can affect electronics.

    Anyhow good luck.
  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,067
    edited March 2017
    Oh I never said anything about changing the video card or the monitor catching fire to the tech on the phone. 

    I think it's the mother board because there should be a light on the motherboard and there is no light now . There was one I saw it you can see it from the top even after you shut down the computer and unplug there is a light on the motherboard . It was there yesterday but today there is no light. There is no light on the power supply either. But the small switch at the back of the computer (Alienwares have this) near the plug point if you press it there is a light so the power supply is working.

    So I think it is the motherboard.

    I have a 4 year guarantee up to 2019
    Post edited by cheyane on
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  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,067
    I could not believe the Alienware/Dell tech on the phone. He asked me to remove the hard drive connection then the memory sticks. He said there were two clips I was to push down on and the stick would pop up but I think the video he was using to guide me had a different memory stick attachment. Only one of the side clips would go down when you push it down and the other was fixed and you had to slide the card out of the fixed part.

    I told him the other won't budge and he said use force even if it breaks it's okay!!!!!!! WTF

    So I kept trying then accidentally I moved it out and took out the  4 sticks. Then he wanted to remove the cache or something well my Italian sucks plus their pronunciation even when I'm not nervous is difficult for some words. He asked to pull this hexagonal shaped object which I told him was secured by 4 screws and he finally got me to remove that after I insisted screws have to be taken out. I later checked the schematics of the Aurora R4 it was the coolong unit not the cache. Seriously they want to talk you through this and they are clueless or looking at wrong vids.

    After testing memory stick he finally said it was either the motherboard or the video card but honestly I do not understand the purpose of getting me to dismantle the pc when I could have caused more damage had I used force when he asked me to. They will send a tech to the house.  Why could they not have done that right from the start.


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  • DenambrenDenambren Member UncommonPosts: 399
    edited April 2017
    I've had a TV short out on me when connecting the computer to it with a DVI connection for the 100th time while both the computer and TV were powered on, but otherwise the video card and TV worked fine together for a number of years before this happened. If this happened when the monitor was turned on, then maybe that was the problem.

    After I shorted out the TV (I did get it repaired by paying a TV repair person), I always make sure my computer and monitors are turned off before plugging anything together.
  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719
    cheyane said:
    I could not believe the Alienware/Dell tech on the phone. He asked me to remove the hard drive connection then the memory sticks. He said there were two clips I was to push down on and the stick would pop up but I think the video he was using to guide me had a different memory stick attachment. Only one of the side clips would go down when you push it down and the other was fixed and you had to slide the card out of the fixed part.

    I told him the other won't budge and he said use force even if it breaks it's okay!!!!!!! WTF

    So I kept trying then accidentally I moved it out and took out the  4 sticks. Then he wanted to remove the cache or something well my Italian sucks plus their pronunciation even when I'm not nervous is difficult for some words. He asked to pull this hexagonal shaped object which I told him was secured by 4 screws and he finally got me to remove that after I insisted screws have to be taken out. I later checked the schematics of the Aurora R4 it was the coolong unit not the cache. Seriously they want to talk you through this and they are clueless or looking at wrong vids.

    After testing memory stick he finally said it was either the motherboard or the video card but honestly I do not understand the purpose of getting me to dismantle the pc when I could have caused more damage had I used force when he asked me to. They will send a tech to the house.  Why could they not have done that right from the start.


    That's some pretty aggressive first-tier phone support lol.
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  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383
    Some style DIMM sockets do only have one clip, so that's not unusual. It is interesting he told you to go ahead and break it.

    The hexagonal object sounds like a heatsink. Not sure what it's on, or what purpose removing it would do

    I agree with Iselin (like the new avatar btw) - that's very unusual for tech support to have you digging around in there, only to send the tech out to your house anyway. In fact, I don't know of any tech support that will have you do much more than take the case off your computer, and most won't even do that, as if they tell you to do something, and you do break it, they have to honor it under warranty. It's much cheaper for them to just take the computer into custody and do the troubleshooting directly than if the customer breaks several hundred dollars worth of stuff inadvertently (not saying you did that, only emphasizing that the tech you spoke to was off and likely won't be working there much longer).

    Sorry to hear about your computer. I would say, based on everything you've posted here, it's almost certainly not your fault. And I'm glad you have full warranty support!

    Also, just on an off chance, do you have some way to test that new video card? Just in case it got fried in this entire process as well, you may still be in the easy vendor RMA/return, rather than having to go through the longer and sometimes more complicated warranty claim.
  • WaldoCornWaldoCorn Member UncommonPosts: 235
    Might not hurt to get a new monitor cable, if the old one is ten years old as well .

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  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,067
    edited April 2017
    It is their phone support part of the warranty that you accept phone support first and they have been doing this for years 
    https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/alienware-do-not-perform-your-own-repairs-65786/
     
    Also the first tech I spoke to also 'threatened' to ask me to take apart the same three things so it is not just that tech.  What boggles my mind is if they meet someone who has absolutely zero knowledge of even opening the case how can you walk them through this. I mean I know a little bit but if you have a person with completely no experience in ever doing anything like this it is nuts truly.

    Is there some quota for these techs oh btw not being facetious or discriminatory  but they all have Muslim names 5 techs I spoke to all with Muslim names. I am an Indian from a Muslim country so I recognize the names although I am Hindu myself. They speak good Italian but my son said they were not Italian when he listened in. 

    Can they really save any money doing this phone support. Before with my other Alienware computer  they never asked me to open it up just the usual disconnect press hold the start button for 30 seconds so this is new for me. I cannot see them actually saving any money but my husband said sending someone out is much more expensive in Europe when you outsource the phone support and the tech that comes to the house is much more costly and perhaps even more than the part they replace for Dell.

    I'm just praying that my new video card is not a casualty too and that they can fix this soon so that I can put back the new video card before the time to return it to Amazon expires.
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  • RenoakuRenoaku Member EpicPosts: 3,157
    edited April 2017
    cheyane said:
    I recently changed my video card from a 770GTX to ASUS turbo 1070 today monitor started flickering,a pop sound like something breaking and  smoke started coming out of the monitor. Shutdown immediately switched out monitor it won't start up and beeping sound emanated from computer. Changed back to old video card computer worked than I put back new video card the computer worked.

    Should I trust the card or will it fry the other monitor too? If the card worked now what could have fried the monitor?
     Anyway if something is wrong with the new video card it won't start up and work with the monitor I switched to am I right. The monitor that fried was an old monitor. The one I am using now is about the same age too. 

    I am at wits end now wondering if this is going to happen again.


    I don't see how it would be your fault if the monitor fried over changing a graphics card...

    I do my own computer repairs and building for many years, and my monitors are 12 years old, Yes they have went out before, but I know how to repair monitors too so that was easy...

    Also the smoke depending on the type of monitor you have, should be a very easy fix if you know what you are doing with them obviously this depends on damage that happened to it either way you should unplug it just to be safe. Also don't trust techs to repair your monitor they usually charge more to fix, than what it is to do the actual repair yourself, or buy a new monitor for that matter. Personally I've became pretty good taking apart my full keyboards too, fixing keyboards my family spills junk into, its just for me Electronics aren't that hard anymore, and by (Keyboard) I mean everything not just keys.

    As for Alienware & Dell Computers,

    Do not buy them, they are flat out pieces of crap especially for customer service and gaming.

    Do not buy Alienware, was bought out by Dell...

    Neither of these companies use top grade computer parts, me I can build a computer that won't stop working for 10 years+, and the only way it would is if the user doesn't know what they are doing, but when you use a Dell, or pre-built computer, always expect to run into issues software, and hardware. And then if you call in for support you speak to someone who doesn't know shit and is located in another country.

    The only thing about Alienware,  that might look cool is the cases, but I am seriously telling people "If you ask for (FULL Product specifications) they can't give them to you beyond the basic specs.

    Ask what the RAM CAS-Latency is, they can't tell you.
    Over half the time  at least from the dell computers I have seen the "Ram Itself" is missing the stickers which have the warranty information and sticks on it...

    Generally Quality memory will have a warranty sticker on it, which says warranty void if removed "Dell Computers" generally are missing these stickers on their parts because a lot of the stuff they sell people is said to be (Refurbished.) And they don't even make people aware if it is or isn't.

    http://www.geil.com.tw/support/warranty  If dell used Genuine Parts it would have Limited Life Time Warranty on the memory for example so if it ever failed you could just call the company who made it and get it replaced (FREE) at least I can but this is an example of a company that makes good ram and a Life Time Warranty, You don't get this with dell, and they charge for extended warranty plans too.

    https://www.in-win.com/  If you want an expensive computer case, otherwise corsair is pretty good.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alienware Alienware bought out by Dell.

    ------------------------------------------------------------
    Also just on a note about those UPS System & Power Strips...

    The batteries in a UPS generally are changed like every 3-5 years, Failure to do this can also cause damage to your system, and possibly electrical fires depending on how many batteries there are in series but generally one set can do the same if it fails, most UPS systems not sure about newer models but most don't contain a circuit that turns off the charge to the battery in-case of this.

    Also you need to make sure your house / outlet is property grounded or the UPS won't do its job.
  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719
    cheyane said:
    It is their phone support part of the warranty that you accept phone support first and they have been doing this for years 
    https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/alienware-do-not-perform-your-own-repairs-65786/
     
    Also the first tech I spoke to also 'threatened' to ask me to take apart the same three things so it is not just that tech.  What boggles my mind is if they meet someone who has absolutely zero knowledge of even opening the case how can you walk them through this. I mean I know a little bit but if you have a person with completely no experience in ever doing anything like this it is nuts truly.

    Is there some quota for these techs oh btw not being facetious or discriminatory  but they all have Muslim names 5 techs I spoke to all with Muslim names. I am an Indian from a Muslim country so I recognize the names although I am Hindu myself. They speak good Italian but my son said they were not Italian when he listened in. 

    Can they really save any money doing this phone support. Before with my other Alienware computer  they never asked me to open it up just the usual disconnect press hold the start button for 30 seconds so this is new for me. I cannot see them actually saving any money but my husband said sending someone out is much more expensive in Europe when you outsource the phone support and the tech that comes to the house is much more costly and perhaps even more than the part they replace for Dell.

    I'm just praying that my new video card is not a casualty too and that they can fix this soon so that I can put back the new video card before the time to return it to Amazon expires.
    There's nothing unusual about large firms farming out first-tier tech support to countries that pay low wages. That's just routine.

    What IS unusual here is asking a customer who may have no technical knowledge at all nor expertise using basic tools, to start yanking things out of the motherboard. That seems like the type of direction that will make things worse more often than not.
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  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,067
    They called to say or rather I called them when they did not call me within the 48 hours and they said too many things wrong with PC and they will come to collect it within 48 hours to take it back to the factory. Apparently when they asked me to remove all those things the beep sounds showed what was wrong and the tech said the note on my complaint said it had too many things wrong to be fixed by a home visit.

    They will take it away minimum for two weeks /gulp.

    So I dragged out my old PC that we bought about the same time as the infamous monitors and it had XP on it and it kept freezing when I tried to open any application so I installed windows 10 on it with watermark (unactivated) using an ISO and bootable pen drive I created with Rufus. Works way better than the slow XP. Will use that until (I hope) I get my PC back, it has an 8800 GTS on it that I upgraded myself 9 years ago. I suppose I can check my Steam games and see which one has cloud sync and can be played with that card.

    I hope all this has a happy ending.
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  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,347
    cheyane said:
    They will take it away minimum for two weeks /gulp.
    So you see why I say that warranty service isn't always worth as much as one might hope.  Fortunately, you have another, older computer around.  That's why I keep a previous computer around as a backup, and it looks like you did the same.

    But I do hope, as you do, that this has a happy ending.
  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,067
    edited April 2017
    This gave me an opportunity to test windows 10 and if no I mean when I get my PC back I might upgrade my operating system from 8.1 to 10 too.

    Although my poor 2 core was churning like its making butter sometimes when it was on XP it kept freezing so badly I had to force it to shutdown and this was what made me decide to get the Windows 10 in the first place. The computer has been lying dormant for like 7 years so I had to update a lot and the XP kept freezing.

    I notice the only bad thing about the non activation is the watermark and lack of personalization which means I cannot do the usual Deviant Art rotisserie of images just fixed ones I have to change manually. I suppose you can only get the download when you have a machine that is not on Windows 10 since I can no longer access the page.
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