Old PC graphics card question

The graphics card in my old PC than runs my CNC machine seems to have a died. Its been a bit dodgy for a while but now appears to have given up. Can anyone confirm what type of connector I have. I know its half height and DVI out but I’m not totally sure of what the connector type to the motherboard is. Hoping I can find one cheap on ebay but don’t want to buy an incompatible one. Its only a basic XP machine so I don’t need anything flash, but I do need something that works

Here is a pic (hopefully):

Looks like PCI-E x16, which is standard with pooters. You can probably pick up something brand new for £30.

Looks like pci-e x16 to me. Would be better to confirm from the motherboard though, make model?

Looks like PCI-E x16

Yup, that’s exactly what it is.  It’s the standard connector for graphics cards, this week.

Are you sure it’s the GFX card which is at fault?

That machine isn’t connected to the Internet with no backups, is it?

Its not connected to the internet as it runs without virus protection (pretty essential that as little runs in the background as possible for CNC cutting) but is well backed up. It won’t be a big deal to replace it but hoping a new card will fix it. It seems to work fine with the on-board graphics card until windows starts then the screen goes black. Windows is running as I can use keyboard shortcuts, although the only useful one I know is to shut it down! my options seem to be either resolve the issue with the on-board graphics or buy a new card.

I’m starting with getting the on-board graphics to work as that means i can do some cutting today. So far, not so good. Black screen on normal windows start, freezes when starting in recovery. Might pop out out at lunchtime for a card

I would check your BIOS settings, you may need to enable your on-board graphics.

As above, I would identify the motherboard first then find a compatible graphics card.

Boot it up in Safe Mode, go into Device Manager and delete whatever’s showing up under Display.  Then reboot.

I would check your BIOS settings, you may need to enable your on-board graphics.

Wut?

Errr… Depending on the age of the Mobo, guessing its old as its XP, you may have to enable or disable the on-board graphics card in the BIOS. Had the same thing with an old server recently.

Have had a look in bios. There is no obvious graphics card option. One that vaguely mentions dual output but either option makes no difference. Can’t boot into safe mode as it hangs while loading. Annoying that safe mode fails when it’s gets all the way through a normal boot just with a blank screen. It seems the on board graphics are working as the bios and splash screens are fine. Just windows not willing to display.

Maplin had a few random pc cards left but no graphics cards. There were some mystery bags for £5 but I’m not feeling that lucky. Will try another shop later.

you may have to enable or disable the on-board graphics card in the BIOS. Had the same thing with an old server recently.

I doubt that.  If you don’t have an external card and were to hypothetically disable the on-board adapter, you wouldn’t be able to see the BIOS screen let alone change anything.  Changing priorities, maybe.

In any case, if it’s getting as far as it is, it’s almost certainly a driver issue.  That’s why I suggested ripping them out in Safe Mode.  Utterly bizarre that it won’t boot up in SM though.  Maybe disconnect any external peripherals and try again?  Something ‘special’ on the USB bus might be hanging it I suppose.

I have a Mac that refuses to boot with a particular USB drive connected, it used to do so fine, then one day just stopped. Works fine when I plug it back in after boot up, so there are clearly some low level issues possible over USB.

I have a Mac that refuses to boot with a particular USB drive connected

Heh.  I had a Compaq minitower forever ago that did similar.  It’d hang on boot if there was anything connected to the USB ports, but bizarrely would then continue with the boot process if you pressed Eject on the CD-ROM drive.  Never did fathom that one out.

How bizarre!

completely unrelated to the OP’s issues, but interesting comments about Windows failing to boot with usb devices plugged in.

If I’m doing 3d cad stuff on my laptop I plug a mouse in. Normally I do this after it’s all started up; just because.

But, the other day I plugged the mouse in immediately without giving it a second thought and the computer failed to boot. Just sat with a black screen. I turned it off and back on again, got the same result and started to worry that perhaps something had gone zzzzzzt pop, when I realised that the mouse was plugged in and that was different to normal.

Unplugged the mouse, tried again and it was fine…

Weird.

I would check your BIOS settings, you may need to enable your on-board graphics.

Might be easier just to look at the back of the machine to see if there’s a VGA socket (your dual screen option in the BIOS suggests that it might have onboard graphics).

I may be wrong but I think that the BIOS screen may display via any onboard graphics even if it’s disabled in the BIOS.