PCI-E Slot not Working / Dead

[Spare-Flair]

Is there any way to tell inside windows or otherwise through any kind of diagnostic software if my PCI-E slot is working?

I’ve had my 8800GT in there for 1.5 years and it worked like a champ. The other night, I shut down as normal and went to bed. In the morning, when I went to boot up, I didn’t get a signal on the monitor but I could hear the computer posting and going into windows! The other telltale sign was that the 8800GT fan was spinning at full speed. Normally at post, it will spin at full and then slow down.

Fortunately, there is integrated video so I reset my bios, took out the battery, did all the usual things in case and booted off the integrated video. In windows, the device manager doesn’t see the 8800GT. I tried several videocard diagnostic and flash programs like nvflash and a bootable floppy and it still doesn’t see the card. At first I thought the card was dead (much better scenario because of lifetime warranty and easy swap) but I goto a friend’s house to try my card in his system and vice versa. My card works fine in his shuttle and his card does the same thing in my (no signal, fan spins forever, PCI-E card not detected by anything). I am making sure that first and primary video device is the PCI-E. I’ve also tried booting off floppy and running “nvflash.exe --list” to list devices in the system and it only shows the onboard Nvidia 6100 whereas previously it would list the 8800GT as well.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the PCI-E slot or bus is dead. Any ideas? I guess I have no real recourse and this computer is useless now as I can't use any PCI-E cards on it. Has this sort of thing happened to anyone before?

 

[davethejackal]

Hmmmm try a bios reset. Is the computer beeping at all? Abnormally so that is (you'll need the internal PC speaker connected to hear this). If so it will probably be telling you what's wrong using a special sort of morse code. Beep codes will be listed in your motherboards manual and will include one for a non-functioning video card.

If it beeps once, as normal, it may be your monitor. Mine is getting old now and sometimes has problems latching on to the v-sync signal from the video card.

Other than that try resetting your motherboard bios using the jumper on the motherboard provided for such purposes.

If this fails, try taking each component out of the motherboard (video card, memory, other expansion cards), make sure the connectors are clean and reseat them. Do these one at a time starting with the video card, reboot after each one and see if that makes a difference.

Make sure the heatsink on the CPU is secure and the clips holding it in place haven't sprung.

Unfortunately no life at all after everything spins/starts up can be a very bad sign, and may indicate CPU or motherboard failure.