In article .com,
wrote:

Talk about a wierd day. My Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card and
NEC Multisync 1810 LCD monitor all failed together. My Speedtouch
router was stopped working but after about an hour of trying different
phone jacks in the house, it inexplicably fixed itself.

Here's the problems - hopefully someone recognises these problems and
can advise me what to do next.

The graphics card was working fine up till now. Now and then when I
reboot the comp, I'd get a continuous beeping sound. Jiggling around
the auxiliary power input to the card seemed to get rid of the beeping.
While I was moving around the comp, I bumped into the graphics card (my
side panel is open to allow air in - too hot otherwise). The computer
immediately shut down. When I restarted it, my screen would artifact
very badly (couldn't read any BIOS output that usually appears at
start). Moving the graphics card to another PC still caused
artifacting, so I am pretty sure the graphics card is at fault.

Do graphics card die like that - with artifacts, or do they just
produce no output? Is there any way to fix it, given the warranty is
probably expired by now?

The NEC Multisync monitor doesn't realise the input cable is plugged
in. If I plug it into (another working) graphics card, it says "No
signal". It is one of those older cables where it splits into 5
connectors for the LCD (R,G,B and 2 others). Closer inspection of the
male part of the cable that goes to the female graphics card shows
5x4x5 pins, with an apparently missing 15th pin. Is this my problem?
Should all graphic card cables have 15 pins? What is this type of cable
called so I can buy a replacement?

Thanks.

Jiggling a video card in its AGP slot is very dangerous. The
faceplate should have the screw installed, to keep the card in
place. If the motherboard has a latch, to hold the "heel" of the
card, that should be engaged also. That helps to prevent accidents.

Chances are, the wrong pins in the socket made contact with the
connector on the video card when the card was bumped. That might
have destroyed the video card.

If a high voltage, like the +12V, were to make its way all the
way to the output drivers (which would seem unlikely), I suppose
it could go down the cable and blow the input stage on the monitor.
Anything is possible.

You can try buying another VGA to separate output video cable,
but my guess would be the input stage on the LCD monitor has
been affected. Buying the cable is most likely a waste of time,
but considering the cost of another monitor, I suppose if the
cable is cheap enough, the experiment is worthwhile.

Search keywords would be VGA, RGBHV, BNC.

http://www.digitalconnection.com/Pro...les/eehd5b.asp

This pinout for VGA shows pin 9 is [Key]. Meaning the pin
may be missing. Wikipedia lists pin 9 as "No connect".

http://pinouts.ws/vga-cable-pinout.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VGA_connector (diagram)

HTH,
Paul