Video Killed the Computer Screen

Quick Quiz:
Of what is this a picture?

photo of the dusty inside of a tower computer

If you said “a desktop computer from around 2004” you are correct.
If you said “not a Mac” you are also correct.
If you said “Some Guy’s computer” you are also correct.

Thursday night, after all the non-festivities of the day, my wife started the computer but the screen was misbehaving. The picture was choppy and repeated and pixels were not where they should have been. I shut it off and figured I’d look at it the next day.

The next day, there was no picture at all. The monitor told us “No Signal”.

So I replaced the video card. I went from this:

photo of a fancy video card with a cooling system

to this:

photo of a generic VGA video card

No, I did not mix up those photos. The desktop computer had a fancy graphics card. I had to add the cooling system (heat sinks! heat-transfer tubes! a fan!) after the card kept resetting during Command & Conquer. That was years ago.

On Saturday, I pulled a video card out of one of my previous computers and plopped that one in the current desktop. Other than having to grab a VGA cable because the old card doesn’t support DVI, I had no problems.

Here’s how the cards compare:

photo of a fancy graphics card alongside a plain graphics card

I can’t run CnC anymore, but at least I know what I want for Christmas now.

For the Lord God of hosts has a day of panic, subjugation and confusion
In the valley of vision,
A breaking down of walls
And a crying to the mountain.

Isaiah 22:5

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This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:08 pm and has been carefully placed in the Technical category.

2 Responses to “Video Killed the Computer Screen”

  1. Ricky Anderson Says:

    That’s the inside of your computer? For shame, SG, for shame.

    {Runs off to check his own tower}

  2. Some Guy Says:

    That was the inside of my computer.

    Now it has a much smaller video card and is slightly less dusty.

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