[Ludivine Poussineau]

So I just got a new video card, a Radeon HD 7970 3GB, but I just get "No Signal" from my monitor (Sceptre X246W-1080P LCD Monitor.) I think the problem is that the video card only offers a port for a DVI input, whereas my monitor has a VGA port, and I'm using an http://www.epartsandmore.com/images/web_images/DVI-VGA-Adapter1.jpg to get the two together. It's the only thing I can think of, even though the adapter works fine with my older video card in the same scenario.

Is that my problem? Do I have to get a new monitor?

Are you sure? I Googled that monitor and Newegg showed it as having both DVI and HDMI inputs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824112018

[asako]

Edit: Suddenly all these questions are irrelevant, figured them all out.

[Tessa Mullins]

Are you sure? I Googled that monitor and Newegg showed it as having both DVI and HDMI inputs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824112018

You're right! I was mistaken. There is a DVI input in that monitor, although a DVI to DVI cable was not included with it, so I guess that's how I missed it. However, I went out and bought such a cable, switched my monitor to HDMI, but I still get the "No Signal" response from my monitor when I hooked the DVI to DVI cable from it to the Radeon card.

[barbara belmonte]

You're right! I was mistaken. There is a DVI input in that monitor, although a DVI to DVI cable was not included with it, so I guess that's how I missed it. However, I went out and bought such a cable, switched my monitor to HDMI, but I still get the "No Signal" response from my monitor when I hooked the DVI to DVI cable from it to the Radeon card.

Isn't there a DVI connection option in the monitor's menu? Or is it the same for both DVI and HDMI? Could be a DOA video card too. Can you test your old video card with the new DVI to DVI cable?

[OJY]

Okay, so I really need to get a legit surge protector to plug my PC into. Not sure how reliable the average product is, how does this Belkin look?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812107196

[Charlotte X]

Isn't there a DVI connection option in the monitor's menu? Or is it the same for both DVI and HDMI? Could be a DOA video card too. Can you test your old video card with the new DVI to DVI cable?

There is both a DVI and HDMI connection option in the monitor's menu, and I've tried both of them and neither work.

It's also worth mentioning that a few months ago I purchased an older Radeon card (older than my current one, but still newer than the one I used to be using) and I had the same "No Signal" problem, so I'm very hesitant to blame it on the video card. On the flip side, I've also tested it with a different monitor and also received no signal.

Is there a way I can test to see if my computer is detecting the video card even though my monitor is hooked up to on-board video?

I have PCI-e x16 set as the initial display in the CMOS and the Onboard VGA set to Enable If No Ext PEG, which I think is as close as I can get to disabling onboard video.

I'm really stumped. This is very frustrating.

[Solina971]

Okay, so I really need to get a legit surge protector to plug my PC into. Not sure how reliable the average product is, how does this Belkin look?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812107196

Joule protection is decent on H-N plugs, but could be improved and the rest aren't so great, but it has a nice clamping speed (time before it clamps down on voltage in a power surge). The only thing I really don't like is the clamping voltage of 500. 400 is better, 330 is best. So not a bad one, but not the best either.

Also have you considered a full-fledged UPS? If you're experiencing frequent brown outs, a surge protector won't do anything and you need a UPS.

I like this one better: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812102407

plus, when you factor in shipping, it's cheaper.

[Cathrin Hummel]

Joule protection is decent on H-N plugs, but could be improved and the rest aren't so great, but it has a nice clamping speed (time before it clamps down on voltage in a power surge). The only thing I really don't like is the clamping voltage of 500. 400 is better, 330 is best. So not a bad one, but not the best either.

Also have you considered a full-fledged UPS? If you're experiencing frequent brown outs, a surge protector won't do anything and you need a UPS.

I like this one better: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812102407

plus, when you factor in shipping, it's cheaper.

Don't think I've ever noticed a brownout, but maybe I'm just not very observant? Regardless, UPS looks a little expensive for me at the moment, so I'll probably just pick up that surge protector for now. Thanks for the advice.

[ILy- Forver]

Don't think I've ever noticed a brownout, but maybe I'm just not very observant? Regardless, UPS looks a little expensive for me at the moment, so I'll probably just pick up that surge protector for now. Thanks for the advice.

If you don't have common brown outs and your power is fairly clean, you don't have much to worry about. I personally will be getting a UPS in the next month or two, before summer, as brown outs/full-on blackouts over here are pretty common during the summer months. I've had a quality surge protector for while now (3000 joules, 400 V clamp), but it's time to step up the protection, basically.

[Kim Kay]

I have a question about Ventrilo. I am not interested in what people think about the program, friends and I use it and won't be changing anytime soon.

I have used the program for a few years now, always on one specific server and with this same computer. Back in late January/early February it worked fine, but now suddenly it won't connect to the server. The server info hasn't changed, I haven't touched any of the settings in the program, my PC hasn't changed at all. I have re-installed vent at least once, maybe twice (I forget) but it still won't connect.

Anyone have any idea what could be wrong?

[Irmacuba]

1. The server is down (does it have a website telling you it's still up?)

2. Your DNS Cache is causing your computer to think it's at X when it's really at Y (run ipconfig /flushdns to see if that resolves it)

3. a program update broke backwards compatibility (is there an upgrade for Vent?)

4. A firewall/antivirus rule is getting in the way

[Neil]

We set up ventrilo back in early 2000, at work we used to test alot of software because we used to give advice to users, but with vent we had lots of problems we went through the usual suspects, and months later we found out that many isp's have problems with ventrilo specifically, because most of their tech support couldnt identify a dead rat or a live rat even if the live rat was running around and the dead rat had a gaping hole in it and had its internals hanging out, it was basically the isp, so also worth looking at, never got a good explaination why, but they said it was common, while i was playing wow towards the end of 2000, people were still having the same problems with their isp's after i got them to call the tech support after they'd tried everything else, not saying it is but worth noting.

[Alex Blacke]

About September last year i got a new computer, barely used it till this year, been using my old xp machine till it got a sudden unknown glitch, so ive been using this one since January this year, it was only supposed to be a gaming machine and my xp machine was supposed to handle everything else, which it does way better than this one.

Now last night suddenly firefox kept crashing, id load it it'd crash, over and over, so i reloaded it, same thing, it was also running really slow, it was strange because id had no problems with it before, then i tried to play a game and my monitor would keep going black and kept running through the formats anolog, hdmi 1, hdmi 2 over and over i could hear the game running but see no image and only way to get the monitor to redisplay was to restart the computer, that happened about 5 times till i got sick of it, then i restart once again and when it starts it says video drivers have crashed, took awhile and they recovered, i installed the latest drivers, tried the game again lost the monitor, then i got a blue screen of death.

Now this is Windows 7 im not overly familiar yet with it what i could get from it was critical power kernel, and it had a listing in action center about video hardware no information or details, if it was xp i could find out more quickly, no idea why there would be problems since it was running perfectly and its barely been used.

Its has a Radeon HD 6900, Intel i7 2600, 3-40ghz, sound blaster x-fi extreme, gigabyte motherboard p67a-ud3-b3, thats a guess as the board either say on the reverse side and i was given no documentation, 8 gig ram, win 7 home premium 64 bit and a samsung sychmaster bx 2450 monitor .

Latest drivers and such.

[Steve Smith]

About September last year i got a new computer, barely used it till this year, been using my old xp machine till it got a sudden unknown glitch, so ive been using this one since January this year, it was only supposed to be a gaming machine and my xp machine was supposed to handle everything else, which it does way better than this one.

Now last night suddenly firefox kept crashing, id load it it'd crash, over and over, so i reloaded it, same thing, it was also running really slow, it was strange because id had no problems with it before, then i tried to play a game and my monitor would keep going black and kept running through the formats anolog, hdmi 1, hdmi 2 over and over i could hear the game running but see no image and only way to get the monitor to redisplay was to restart the computer, that happened about 5 times till i got sick of it, then i restart once again and when it starts it says video drivers have crashed, took awhile and they recovered, i installed the latest drivers, tried the game again lost the monitor, then i got a blue screen of death.

Now this is Windows 7 im not overly familiar yet with it what i could get from it was critical power kernel, and it had a listing in action center about video hardware no information or details, if it was xp i could find out more quickly, no idea why there would be problems since it was running perfectly and its barely been used.

Its has a Radeon HD 6900, Intel i7 2600, 3-40ghz, sound blaster x-fi extreme, gigabyte motherboard p67a-ud3-b3, thats a guess as the board either say on the reverse side and i was given no documentation, 8 gig ram, win 7 home premium 64 bit and a samsung sychmaster bx 2450 monitor .

Latest drivers and such.

Screams of TDRing and a bad GPU in particular. Software-based TDRing is almost always recovered by Windows, but if hardware is at fault for the TDRing, it can easily lock up the entire system.

[Jessie Rae Brouillette]

Its really unusual when i lose my monitor just before it goes you here a fan suddenly wind up to speed then slow down and the image disappears, it happens everytime, and i cant find out which fan it is since this box has 7 fans, not counting the power supply, CPU and GPU.

Plus when i checked the interior of the machine id found out that the morons who built my machine had put the power supply upside down, the power supply is at the bottom of the machine so the fan was against the bottom of the case, i just turned it around so the fan was facing up, so i was hoping that it didnt overheat and cause any damage.

[Jaki Birch]

EDIT: This might all be meanignless, I just got a meassage from a friend that the Vent server IP changed at some point recently but I didn't hear about the change. I will be getting the new IP soon but I will leave the rest of this up here in case that doesn't fix the problem.

1. The server is down (does it have a website telling you it's still up?)

I had friends on the Vent server when I could not connect to it so the server seems to be working, but when I enter the server name and port http://ventrilo.com/status.phpI get this message:

"PHP: Unable to resolve the target hostname 'xxx.ventriloservers.biz' "

xxx. is in place of posting the server name here obviously.

2. Your DNS Cache is causing your computer to think it's at X when it's really at Y (run ipconfig /flushdns to see if that resolves it)

I did that and it didn't help.

3. a program update broke backwards compatibility (is there an upgrade for Vent?)

Not sure about this, but I don't think so, I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone to verify the version on the server.

4. A firewall/antivirus rule is getting in the way

This seems most likely at this point. The only software firewall I use is the built-in XP one. It has an exception for Vent and I have tried it with the firewall turned off and on, no difference. I have been using the free version of avast! for a while, Vent has worked fine with it until recently, but I have not made any changes there. I have tried starting Vent with active shields on and off, again no difference. I don't see anywhere to create exceptions to allow individual programs to connect to the internet.

I am wondering if it is something in my router. I poked around in there a bit but didn't see anything obvious and I'm not comfortable enough to start changing things in there willy-nilly. Do you have any experience with Frontier Fios and the Actiontec MI424-WR routers?

[Facebook me]

is monster wire http://www.amazon.com/Monster-100-Feet-Speaker-Cable/dp/B00006345D/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1330897284&sr=1-2 really good for surround sound systems
if so
why?

[Emma louise Wendelk]

What is the performance difference between these two cards. Does one really benefit from one over the other?

GeForce GTX 560 Ti

A
Core 900 Mhz
Shader 1800 Mhz
384
Mem 4212 Mhz
1GB
256-bit

B
Core 822 MHz
Shader 1645 MHz
384
Mem 4000 Mhz
2GB
256-bit

[ZzZz]

is monster wire http://www.amazon.com/Monster-100-Feet-Speaker-Cable/dp/B00006345D/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1330897284&sr=1-2 really good for surround sound systems
if so
why?

Monster is just a great quality wire. There are others that will perform just as well, as long as the wire size is 14 or 12. And stranded or, even better, braided wire will perform best. The main thing is pay attention to your installation. Keep speaker cables away from power cords. (At least 8") If you must cross, do so at right angles and do not run parallel to power. This will reduce inductance. The power will bleed over onto the sound and cause static across the system.

EDIT : While not CPU savvy, I was an Electrician for 35 years. 20 of that as a Contractor. I installed many custom systems for my customers. Hope this helps.

[Taylor Bakos]

I'm gonna bump my problem because I've found out a lot and I practically have a new question at this point anyway.

Basically, I purchased a new custom built computer. Whenever I hook my monitor up to my video card, I get no signal. Here are my specs:
Intel Core i7 2600K Processor
Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3
AMD Radeon HD 7970 - 3GB
Corsair CMPSU-1050HX
8 GB RAM
SSD Cache - 40 GB Intel 320 Series

The video card is seated and the PCI-E cables are plugged in. I went into the CMOS and have the initial display set to PCIE x16 and the Onboard VGA to only be enabled if there's nothing in the PEG slot. The signal is fine when I hook it into the on-board video, and I've even went as far as to switch monitors, and I still receive no signal from the video card.

I'm wondering if the problem is that the Radeon HD 7970 is a PCI Express 3.0 card, but it doesn't look like the Intel i7 2600K supports PCI Express 3.0. Is that the problem? I feel like I've exhausted other possibilities.

[Michelle Smith]

I'm gonna bump my problem because I've found out a lot and I practically have a new question at this point anyway.

Basically, I purchased a new custom built computer. Whenever I hook my monitor up to my video card, I get no signal. Here are my specs:
Intel Core i7 2600K Processor
Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3
AMD Radeon HD 7970 - 3GB
Corsair CMPSU-1050HX
8 GB RAM
SSD Cache - 40 GB Intel 320 Series

The video card is seated and the PCI-E cables are plugged in. I went into the CMOS and have the initial display set to PCIE x16 and the Onboard VGA to only be enabled if there's nothing in the PEG slot. The signal is fine when I hook it into the on-board video, and I've even went as far as to switch monitors, and I still receive no signal from the video card.

I'm wondering if the problem is that the Radeon HD 7970 is a PCI Express 3.0 card, but it doesn't look like the Intel i7 2600K supports PCI Express 3.0. Is that the problem? I feel like I've exhausted other possibilities.

Is the GPU plugged into the power supply?

[Chrissie Pillinger]

Is the GPU plugged into the power supply?

Yes.

[Hot]

You can rule out the problem of it being a PCI-E 3.0 card, because that's not an issue here. Did you plug the onboard into the monitor with the same type of cable as the video card?

[Nick Jase Mason]

Yes.

is(are) the fan(s) on the GPU spinning? Simple way to verify it's getting power.

PCI-e 3.0 devices fallback fine to 2.0, so that's not a problem (it's out of necessity right now since Otherwise it'd be useless until Ivy Bridge). If it seems to be drawing power fine, I'd say it's just a defective card.

[latrina]

You can rule out the problem of it being a PCI-E 3.0 card, because that's not an issue here.

Damn, really? I thought I was onto something.

Did you plug the onboard into the monitor with the same type of cable as the video card?

Yes. I first tried a VGA to VGA cable with a DVI adapter, then I just went with a DVI to DVI cable. I've also set the monitor to DVI.

is(are) the fan(s) on the GPU spinning? Simple way to verify it's getting power.

Yes.

If it seems to be drawing power fine, I'd say it's just a defective card.

Maybe, but I've been hesitant to blame it on the card because a few months ago I got a new Radeon HD card and had the same problem. It was a different card and different PC, but same monitor.