Dead Graphics Card?

Rrider20

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Dead Graphics Card? - Blu-ray Forum
Hi guys, I have on older Toshiba x200 laptop that still runs Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit, with a 8700M GT graphics card, 3GB RAM. I only use the computer mostly to play a dozen or so older PC games from time to time.

I had updated the graphics driver a little over a year ago, to one of the latest issues (2013 or so) they had on the NVidia website, and the computer was running beautifully this whole time. Now, I was in the middle of a game and the screen started to have these little specs or flakes all over the place and then moments later it froze up and looked something like the pictures I attached here.

I tried a hard reboot and the computer came back online normally, then I installed an older driver that I knew was safe and worked for years before the last one I installed... and the computer did the same thing only a couple minutes into a game. Now it has stopped outputting anything to the screen at all. When I do a hard reboot there is nothing coming up on the screen, but I can hear the logon chime/noise when the computer enters desktop, but I still cannot see anything on screen, just black.

Is there anyway to start up in Safe Mode, without me being able to see the screen and choose the option? I tried holding F8 while the computer was restarting but nothing happened. Is the Graphics card dead, or can I get it working by somehow uninstalling/deleting all video drivers and installing the basic factory ones again?

Would connecting the laptop to my tv with HDMI cable let me see the screen, or will that not work either if the card is not functioning?

Very much appreciate any advice you guys have.
 

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Yeah, if you're not seeing the computer start up screen then I wouldn't bother fiddling around with operating system stuff like safe mode or drivers.

It's obviously not something essential that has failed like the power supply though, which does suggest it's the screen or the graphics card.

It's worth trying an external screen. The shortcut to change screen setups is WinKey + P in later versions but looking online there seem to be conflicting reports as to whether this works in Vista or not. You press it multiple times to cycle through the different options
 
Ok, thanks so much fellas. Yeah, no Bios Boot Logo or anything comes up. The screen is still sort of "lit" a little bit, it's black, but not like when there is no power to it at all like when the computer is turned off. But yeah, nothing comes up on the screen at all.

Dang, I was hoping it was maybe fixable by completely uninstalling the drivers or doing a reformat or something... but it does seem like the card is a goner. I will try and connect the computer to my TV with an HDMI cable and see if I can at least view the desktop screen and copy any of my files I need onto a flash drive or something.

Is it possible to replace a graphics card in a laptop, with the same model card, or better? Or can this only be done with desktop computers?
 
Not easily. Some laptops did have their GPUs on seperate MXM boards but they were nowhere near as standardised as desktop PCI-Express cards.

If it is the GPU best just to buy a newer second hand machine. Almost everything designed for Vista should work fine on Windows 10.
 
Ok, yeah you're right... I looked into it a bit, and there may be a chance my card could be replaceable, but it is way too involved of a process and beyond my capabilities.

Will look for a decent replacement laptop... probably pretty easy to get one for a nice price on the second hand market that outperforms this older model by quite a bit anyways.

Thanks for all the help guys, much appreciate!
 
Hi guys, thanks again for all the help. Just wanted to give an update and say that I was able to connect an HDMI cable from the laptop to my TV and was able to view it and get into all my files and transfer them via Ethernet to another computer, thank god!

My computers screen/desktop that was shown on my TV was in a very low resolution and still had a good amount of artifacts like the pictures I added in my first post, but it was still viewable and the computer functioned normally enough to transfer the files and run properly.

In the Device Manager, I clicked on my graphics card's properties and it had a message in there that said " windows had stopped this device because it has reported problems". It also mentioned "code 43" on there somewhere too.

Now that I can get into the computer and view it via another screen, is this a fixable problem at all? I tried to Roll Back the driver, then restart computer, but it came back with the same artifacts after restarting. Then I tried uninstalling the device and restarting, reinstalling... but same artifacts after another restart.

Is there a more advanced way of uninstalling the device/driver that I need to do, or is this most likely a fried graphics card after all?
 
Looks liek your VRAM is kaput.

Ive had it before with a 6800XT and theres nothing you can really do.

Not sure if you can reroute the signal past the dying GPU and use the iGPU because it depends on how the laptop was manufactured.

Try DDU to uninstall all drivers and stop auto update via Windows software update.
 
Looks liek your VRAM is kaput.

Ive had it before with a 6800XT and theres nothing you can really do.

Not sure if you can reroute the signal past the dying GPU and use the iGPU because it depends on how the laptop was manufactured.

Try DDU to uninstall all drivers and stop auto update via Windows software update.

Ok thanks very much, I figured it's probably a goner... with me not being able to get anything at all (even startup, bios) to show on the laptops own screen, just on an external screen through HDMI.

I did come across some instructions on how to use DDU and wipe it clean/reinstall, so might as well give that a try just incase... or a system restore to a previous version?
 

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