Sounds like a hardware problem to me! (I wouldn't bother booting off
your Ubuntu CD.)
The same thing happened to one our our older workstations recently. It
turns out the port on the graphics card had become a little loose (at
first I thought maybe the card itself wan't firmly attached to the
motherboard slot). Just gently jiggling the monitor cable where it is
attached to the graphics card brought back the video. It hasn't acted up
since, but I'm sure it eventually will. (Since this particular PC is
very rarely used, it's not a priority. So I haven't yet tried to tighten
the tiny screws on the port.)
Perhaps when you added RAM, the graphics card became a little loose.
That's the first thing I would check. Also check the port that the cable
plugs into it. Or maybe the cable is bad. Or maybe the monitor is bad.
Just replace/address all those variables, one at a time, until you
determine the culprit.
AIANDAS wrote:
> P.S.
> Just as I was writing the previous reply my screen went to black, all
> the meanwhile the PC box continued to work. I was then forced to shut
> down and reboot. Is it possible my graphics card is going south for
> good?
> Do I need to replace my graphics card? If so should I get a 512MB
> card?
>
> "AIANDAS" wrote:
>
>> I can't say with 100% that the problems began as soon as I made the
>> upgrade to 4GB RAM but it certainly is becoming suspect now more and
>> more.
>> My graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT with 256 MB DDR
>> memory, whose drivers I updated maybe 3-4 days ago.
>> Well if I go into Safe Mode and see if the system freezes up I may
>> have to wait a while I think..........I happen to have Ubuntu
>> around, v 9.01. What am I doing, bott off that CD when I restart the
>> machine and see what happens?
>> I have by happenstance created partitions to install Ubuntu but
>> haven't gotten around to doing so. It couldn't possibly be those
>> partitions that are creating the problem esp. since I have not
>> installed anything there.
>> Do you think the graphics card is not agreeing with the 4GB of RAM?
>> Otherwise what could be wrong with the graphics card?
>> Thank you.
>>
>> "Daave" wrote:
>>
>>> AIANDAS wrote:
>>>> Lately I have been experiencing freeze-ups on a consistent basis.
>>>> I have taken the following troubleshooting measures: Opened up my
>>>> pc and removed whatever dust may have been there that may have
>>>> caused the graphics card to stop working; have checked my Event
>>>> Viewer for Errors and nothing really significant there to be a
>>>> cause for alarm. What other troubleshooting measures can I
>>>> investigate to find out what is going on?
>>>> This is a 6 1/2 year old Dell Server.......I am running 4 GB RAM on
>>>> it and I am beginning to wonder if the extra memory may be causing
>>>> the problems? Should I go back to 3 GB of RAM to have some on-going
>>>> stability?
>>>
>>> Did the problems happen immediately after upping the amount of RAM?
>>>
>>> What was the reason you increased the RAM in the first place? Did
>>> you know that a 32-bit operating system is unable to use 4GB of
>>> RAM? It won't hurt, of course, but the most you will be able to
>>> utilize is probably about 3.25GB. For more info, see:
>>>
>>> http://blogs.msdn.com/hiltonl/archive/2007/04/13/the-3gb-not-4gb-ram-problem.aspx
>>>
>>> Perhaps all you need to do is revert to your original RAM
>>> configuration. If that doesn't work, see if your system freezes in
>>> Safe Mode.
>>>
>>> Also, please elaborate on your graphics card not working.
>>>
>>> Finally, you can always boot off a bootable CD (like UBCD4Win or
>>> Ubuntu) and see if your system acts up in a similar way. If it
>>> doesn't, then you know your problem is hardware-related.
>>>
>>>
>>> .