There was nothing good on TV tonight, so Tasha and I went over to look at what the Media Center had recorded. Strangely, it wouldn’t connect. I tried to Remote Desktop to the machine and it would also not connect however the computer looked as if it was turned on. “Oh yeah,” Tasha mentions casually, “I heard three pops from it the other day. Loud ones.”
Oh good.
I hook up the external monitor and peripherals, no picture on the monitor. Crap. I then restart the machine a few times. Nothing. I open up the case and everything appears normal, so I grabbed my laptop and tried the monitor connection from the laptop. I thought perhaps the old monitor had finally gone dead while not being used. Nope, picture crackled right to life.
So then I start taking things out of the machine. I pulled the video card out and took a good hard look at it.
Wait… what’s that?
Now I don’t know what those things are technically called since I’m no kind of electronics guru, but I do know that they’re not supposed to be cracked along the top with what appears to be fiberglass insulation sticking out the top. I suspect now that my video card is fried, and this would certainly account for the pops that Tasha heard. Apparently the power strip that I had the machine plugged into is not a surge protector. Here’s to hoping I didn’t just deep six the entire box.
I think I’ll put in an order for a video card replacement and cross my fingers… I can get the same video card for around $40, which isn’t bad.
Man, I hate it when my technology revolts against me.
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