Help No Display on TV

[ramathorn]

I've just this morning taken delivery of my new PC, bought second hand on ebay (Water Cooled Gaming PC i7 920 P6T Deluxe ATI HD 4870x2 on eBay (end time 20-Feb-10 11:59:47 GMT))

Fired it up this morning when it came in and wasnt getting anything out of the display (connected to my 42" TV VIA VGA cable through a DVI adaptor at the other end - dont ask). Thought maybe a problem with the DVI adaptor (some pins were bent in it a while back) so I went and bought a DVI to HDMI adaptor and a new HDMI cable. Same thing happening, no display.

Went through the normal stuff, removed all the RAM, tried it with one stick, still nothing, reseated all the cables, nothing, reseated the card, nothing. When reseating the card I noticed it was warm, like really warm - couldnt actually take it out to reseat it until it cooled down. Obviously something not right with the cooling so traced a wee cable coming out of the water cooler round to the back of the machine, took the other side plate off and realised the water cooler hadnt been connected.

Connected this up and the water cooling now sounds like its working (i didnt know what to expect from it, never used water cooling before) but still getting nothing out of the card.

Has anyone got an idea what might be happening here? Could the card have overheated and fried? The guy who sold me it has asked me to try with a monitor rather than my tv, I cant see this making a difference as surely they both work in the same why? i dont have a monitor to hand to try but i am getting one tonight. Any other idea's as to what the hell could be going on?

 

[ramathorn]

update: got a monitor, powered it on, got the good old "no signal" box floating about. powered the pc on and connected up the monitor, display went completely black, nothing coming up at all.....i'm out of idea's

 

[Jupitus]

Ouch - sorry to say but to me it seems you might have fried that GFX card... I'd try a standard GFX card as a test. Good luck!

 

[ramathorn]

Looking a bit of advice as a follow up to this issue, the boy I bought this PC from has got it back and has been tinkering about with it, he has come back to me and said the graphics card is faulty and is looking me to pay 100 quid+ for a replacement card. I'm obviously not extatic about this idea, surely me buying the machine would entitle me to a working machine out of the box and if its not working out of the box it should be repaired / refunded? I am debating just asking for my cash back but I know for a fact he is not gonna be up for it, I cant even log it through paypal as I paid by direct bank transfer.

pissed off and raging

 

[Zenith.UK]

And the lesson to learn from this is either buy your PC from a shop, or build your own from components.

Take the £100 and get the graphic card. It sounds almost certainly like it got fried. Be thankful that he's giving you £100 back. You could have got a seller who's a real twat and wouldn't bother to help you once the sale had completed.

 

[old.user4556]

I paid by direct bank transfer.

Facepalmed at this.

Sounds like you're in a bit of plop here, I'd speak with ebay to see exactly what your options are but I'd say it doesn't look good. Was he adamant that it was working before he sent it?

For the bits i've sold on ebay, I always test them before packing and send the other person an email confirming fully tested / working (I suppose you could lie about that).

 

[ramathorn]

Facepalmed at this.

Sounds like you're in a bit of plop here, I'd speak with ebay to see exactly what your options are but I'd say it doesn't look good. Was he adamant that it was working before he sent it?

For the bits i've sold on ebay, I always test them before packing and send the other person an email confirming fully tested / working (I suppose you could lie about that).

aye he said it was working 100% so its his word against mine there. I paid by transfer as I had issues with my paypal account at the time (reached the max sending limit, had to get account verified etc). Cheers for the replies, I'll get in touch with eBay and see if there's anything that can be done, otherwise I'll just bite the bullet and buy a card for it - take it as a lesson learned the hard way

 

[old.user4556]

What is his feedback like? Is there a lot and is it all positive?

 

[ramathorn]

2458, all positive with the exception of one neutral. which is also why i didnt mind paying by bank transfer

 

[Embattle]

aye he said it was working 100% so its his word against mine there. I paid by transfer as I had issues with my paypal account at the time (reached the max sending limit, had to get account verified etc). Cheers for the replies, I'll get in touch with eBay and see if there's anything that can be done, otherwise I'll just bite the bullet and buy a card for it - take it as a lesson learned the hard way

It probably was but without the water cooling running the 4870X2 heats up very very fast and probably cooked itself, now the question comes down to was it connected when it left or would there of been a risk it has become dislodged during transportation. I do feel however you will find this a case of having to meet half way.

 

[MYstIC G]

Ask him to split the difference, you clearly wouldn't blow up your new PC on purpose and given the feedback it's unlikely he'd have sent you something duff.

 

[ramathorn]

we've managed to come to an amicable solution - splitting the cost. cheers for the help, hopefully have her tomorrow and start catching up on bad company 2