PC died, any advice?

[Ja'chyra]

So i was happily killing stuff in EQ2 last night when the screen went a nice shade of red, well, redy brown and locked up. I tried to reboot as we all know that switching it on and off again fixes most things but now it won't start at all. The specs are:

Executer 6600 - Intel Core 2 Duo 6600, 4Gb RAM (replaced), 2x500Gb HDD (replaced) Nvidia 8800GTS 640Mb PCI-E

As it's over 4 years old I don't really want to start the expensive hobby of buying parts to see if it's that one that doesn't work although gievn how it happened my guess would be on the video card or HDD. When I switch it on now the fans start, the green light comes on at the back, the red HDD comes on solid (doesn't flash or go off), both DVD drives flash green and then go off, I get a loud beep then nothing, it just sits with the fans running and the red HDD light on. I've tried starting it with the boot up disks in and tried removing and replacing the video card, RAM and HDD's, all one at a time like a good little engineer.

So, any advice or am I going to have to stump up for a new one?

Also, if I need a new one any advice where to go, I got the last from Novatech and 4 years isn't too bad.

Thanks all

[Lemur]

First thing to do is figure out whether or not it was just the videocard that died. Most motherboards have some sort of cheap VGA port somewhere on them; find that, plug your monitor in, see if it boots. Then report back. (I suspect the videocard because of the color weirdness. Could also be the monitor. Can you lay hands on a spare monitor as well?)

[drone]

I wouldn't think a dead monitor would prevent a boot, whereas a bad video card could. Can you find any data on your motherboard/BIOS beep codes?

[Ja'chyra]

Ladies and gents we have a winner:

One long beep, then two short beeps
Video problem

I knew someone here could help, I need to order a male to female vga cable as I only have male to male but as soon as I get one I'll confirm it's the video card and swap it over, then I'll save up for a motherboard and processor package and do it step by step.

Thanks guys

[Ja'chyra]

Got another question for all those that know more than me about computers, which really narrows it down. Any advice for a relatively good, cheap graphics card, say under £50?

My plan now is to buy a new tower and motherboard in the next two months and move over the rest of my components then gradually update, but in the mean time I need something to do otherwise I could be forced to talk to the Mrs and that is never good. So, if I get a decentish card I reckon I can eke another couple of months out of the old rig without having to stump up £1k now

So I had a look at Novatech and Toms hardware and he recommends the ATI 5670 which I can get from Novatech for £60, slightly overbudget but it seems to be considerably better than the Nvidia 8800 GTS that just died, so it might give me more time before I need to upgrade again rather than a really cheap card.

[TinCow]

Got another question for all those that know more than me about computers, which really narrows it down. Any advice for a relatively good, cheap graphics card, say under £50?

Hmm... I always judge prices based on Newegg.com, but they are USD-only. 50GBP is about 80USD. It is much easier to find a good card at sub-80USD than sub-50USD, so I searched based on the conversion rate rather than dollar-for-pound. My pick would be the EVGA GF9500GT 1GB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130395). A stupidly good price on a solid 1GB card, which will certainly hold you over for a few months. Then again, I'm a Nvidia fanboy, so I never even look twice at ATI cards.