Today I built my new PC. Put everything correctly in the case, connected everything correctly to the motherboard, etc... This afternoon when it was done, I could perfectly boot up the PC and I installed Windows and Linux on it. All worked perfectly. It has worked fine the whole afternoon. Later I let it do some updates in Linux, in the console. I left it alone during this. When I came back, it was in screensaver mode (in the console), meaning the screen is just black. I pressed a key and the image was back. But, it was weird: in front of each console letter character, was a white black square. And it flickered. And if I switched to other virtual consoles: the same flicker! But the letters were still readable and the text in the console screen was normal (percentages of how much % of each package it had downloaded). I typed "reboot" to reboot the system in the hope that the image would be normal again. But instead, there was no display at all anymore! The screen was just black! I have rebooted a lot of times now, and there is just nothing! No BIOS screen or startup image or anythign at all!!! It's just black!!! The lights of the HD flicker, the numlock key of the keyboard works, and it seems to be doing things when I boot it up, but just the screen is black!! I've tried removing and reinsirting the videocard, but it didn't help. I tried waiting a long time until everything was cooled and restarting, but it didn't help. Now I'm out of options - maybe the video card is broken? But I can't test it, because it's the only PCI-express card in the house here, and the motherboard supports only PCI-express cards (no AGP connectors on it). What can I do??? What could have happened? How can I even know what is broken and thus what I have to send back for warranty? I don't want to wait another week!! I've already waited 3 weeks until all the parts finally arrived!!! Any ideas what there can be and what I can do? Thanks!

Are you sure it's not your monitor cable? Is it securely connected to both your card and monitor? Do you have another one to check if it's not a bad cable? Can you try the monitor on another computer? You would be better off checking that before you assume the card is dead.


jfl.

If you have one of the motherboards with a small LED indicator look to see if it is showing an error code and if so look up the code to see if it gives you a hint.

Take out and re-seat the monitor cables and video card. Did you have the power supply plugged straight into the vid card? Re-seat that too. Is the fan on the vid card spinning?

Other than that I would imagine that the only option would be to try and find another video card to try.

The letters all had flickering white blocks over them, there was a pattern, certain characters got a certain type of flickering block, and most letters were readable, it would be strange if it were a monitor problem.

Another interesting thing:

I let it start up. It boots standard to linux. I waited a while, then typed "root", enter, <my root password>, enter, and then typed "shutdown -h now" which is the shutdown command. A few seconds later, the PC turned off. So it's in fact still responding to things I type...

Does the same thing happen when you boot to your Windows installation instead of Linux?

Does the motherboard come with an on-board graphics chip and if so, have you tried plugging your monitor into it instead of the PCI-express one?

Good Luck,
ViLiO

The motherboard hasn't got an internal video card. It's a gigabyte 965P-DS4.
The videocard is an ASUS EN7600GT Silent.

Booting to Linux or Windows makes no difference. There already is no image before booting to anything at all, I mean, it's black from the beginning, no POST screen, no BIOS, etc...

Any BIOS beep code? (if this still apply to new motherboards)

edit: Yeah I checked you motherboard manual and the last last thing in it is:

AWARD BIOS Beep Codes
1 short: System boots successfully
2 short: CMOS setting error
1 long 1 short: DRAM or M/B error
1 long 2 short: Monitor or display card error
1 long 3 short: Keyboard error
1 long 9 short: BIOS ROM error
Continuous long beeps: DRAM error
Continuous short beeps: Power error

Sounds like:

1) a bad graphics card
2) a bad monitor cable
or
3) a bad monitor

Most likely is #1. I would buy another graphics card and try with that, and if that works, return the first for a refund (as it's broken in that case).

i would hate to think that such a sweet video card would go bad so fast(altho it is probably the case). i would still do as sugested and try a different monitor first. or try the card in a different computer.

i dont know about where you live, but some of the local mom and pop computer stores around me will let you bring in the card and they will check it out for you.

I've done some more tests.

If I attach a monitor (any monitor, I tried an old CRT monitor too) through an analog interface instead of DVI, the monitor will show an image. This image is the following:

-during text mode (while booting the computer, the black background with white letters), some of the letter characters get weird shapes and flickering white blocks
-during graphical mode (e.g. windows), there are thick vertical colored stripes at regular intervals on the screen, and they aren't flickering, they're stationary

Linux in text mode seems to be able to operate normally. But Windows reboots itself after a short time any time I try.

I've tried the card in both PCI-e slots of my motherboard, and in both cases it gives the same result.

The analog interface shows the same thing as I saw with DVI before I rebooted. But now when using DVI, the monitor never shows anything, unlike the analog interface, so maybe something of the DVI signal that should let the monitor know that there's an image is also not working...

I have no PC speaker in the case, so no beep codes...

It really is the video card that's broken, isn't it? :s

The store is an online store. That's gonna take a long while before I get another video card from them, I think :(