Diagnose my laptop...

May 15, 2009 2:58 PM

When I turn on my Asus A8Jm (NVIDIA go7600) laptop, I get a strangely beautiful cross-hatching of colored lines. This sounds like a fried video card, right? Luckily, the card is replaceable... how likely is that this is the only problem and replacing the card will fix things?
posted by geos to computers & internet (6 answers total)

Pics?
posted by SirStan at 7:14 PM on May 15, 2009

here is a pic of the screen. the lines are actually finer, but you get the idea. they gently pulsate when i first turn it on.
posted by geos at 8:03 PM on May 15, 2009

I'd connect it to an external monitor 1st to verify it is really the video card. From my experience video card failures are pretty rare and it usually turns out to be the LCD display.
posted by white_devil at 9:52 AM on May 16, 2009

Agreed with white_devil. Also, check that your fans are working - my laptop started running plaid and it was because both fans had died and the insides were frying. Got the fans replaced and all was well again.
posted by Billegible at 11:06 AM on May 16, 2009

main system fan seems to have failed...thanks, saved me a fair chunk of cash and resultant heartbreak.
posted by geos at 2:01 PM on May 16, 2009

nope... wasn't the main system fan. turned it on again and realized it was actually booting up which somehow i had missed before. external display doesn't seem to be sending out any signal. guess i'll go back to guessing that the video card has failed. oh well.
posted by geos at 9:06 AM on June 3, 2009