tech support plz

[Lythos-]

Hi i'm running an older comp. It's a 7 year old Dell custom built that i made for UO.

Specs:
Pent 4
3ghz
1gb ram
Radeon 256mb graphics card.

Troubleshooting:
Pc monitor goes into standby mode and never returns. At this time only i get a wiff of a slight burning smell. Pc then requires a manual shutdown and reboot since monitor will not react to mouse movement or keystrokes. Rinse repeat everytime monitor standby is activated.

I'm thinking it's the graphics card or overheating but i'm not sure how to check. UO still plays fine but 3d games lock up.

Until i'm able to get a new comp is there a chance at an actual fire?

Thanks-

 

[Harlequin]

Yeah, from what you say, I'd suspect the video card is really overheating. I had 2 cards burn out after the fans on the cards burned out. 3D games taxes the GPU alot more.

If you can smell an acrid metallic burning smell = it's bad. I'm surprised it can still work.

And dust bunnies are actually quite flammable...

No good way to tell, but you open up the casing and without touching the innards, power it on, see if the fan on the video card is working.

If not, it might be wise to get a cheap replacement video card until you can get a new PC.