Graphics card aka video board
A graphics card also known as a video card or VGA board is a laptop component responsible for creating images on a laptop screen.
In most low-mid range laptops the graphics card is integrated into the motherboard. In other words, it’s a part of the motherboard. If that’s the case, the graphics card is not removable or upgradeable. If the graphics card fails, you have to replace the whole motherboard.
A discrete graphics card can be found in high range models and high end gaming laptops. Discrete graphics cards can be removed and in some cases they are upgradeable.
Here’s another example of the discrete video card in a high end gaming laptop. As you see the video card can be separated from the motherboard.
GRAPHICS CARD RELATED PROBLEMS
You can use the following method for troubleshooting problems related to graphics cards.
Let’s say your display stopped working properly. The image is distorted or garbled. Is this problem related to the VGA board or LCD screen?
Connect your laptop to an external monitor and take a look at the external video output. If you see the same problem as on the internal LCD screen, most likely it’s related to the VGA board. If video on the external monitor works fine and the problem appears only on the internal LCD screen, most likely your problem is related to the LCD screen or LCD cable.
TYPICAL VIDEO CARD FAILURE
Below you can see a few pictures taken from a laptop with a faulty video card.
1. When you start the laptop, the initial screen with manufacturer’s logo is not displayed properly on both internal LCD screen and external monitors. You can see random characters, vertical lines running through the logo, random colors, etc…
2. Same problem appears when the laptop displays the boot menu. The screen is either not readable at all, or there are some random characters all over the image.
3. Finally, the laptop starts loading Windows, but the image on both screens is still garbled.
A problem like that is not related to the laptop screen or inverter board.
Again, if the video card is integrated into the motherboard and it fails, you’ll have to replace the motherboard.
Need spare parts for your laptop?
If you are looking for spare parts for your laptop you can find brand new and used parts here. Just search by the part name and laptop model.
December 10th, 2009 at 11:21 am
I have taken my Sony Vaio PCG-V505DC2 laptop apart several times in order to solve its problem of being dead.
Can you answer my question below?
First I bought a new battery, battery does not charge.
Second I tested the AC/DC plug and found it OK out put 15V (OK I cut the cord part and ruined the end, but still works)
Third I cleaned and reassembled the heat sink and cleaned the fan.
Fourth I completly dissasembled and removed the MB so I could find out what the power plug was connected to. This happened to be the video card (A8068226A VIF-24). I am supposing that this may be the problem to the dead issue. Why, because 1) this is where the power connection goes to, 2) I was having some problems with delayed/skippy video from streaming TV shows, and 3) the dead problem occurred immediatley after I plugged my desktop monitor into the side port.
Do you think that replaceing the board (A8068226A VIF-24) might cause the computer to come alive again?
December 1st, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Mr. Repair Man,
I have a viewsonic stand alone lcd. The monitor lights up but no picture at all. I suspect bad vga board (converts signal to lcd screen?).
I also have a few Planar monitors that were given to me. They do fine at first for several minutes then flash or go out. Invertor? I’ve found an ebay site with universals for a fair price. Is it worth my time?
Thanks for your time.
December 1st, 2009 at 6:25 am
Thank you for the reply, it’s a Qosmio G30-126. The product’s web page shows the following info about the video card.
manufacturer : NVIDIA®
memory amount : 256 MB
memory type : DDR3 Video RAM
connected bus : 16x PCI Express
It says that it is connected to the 16x PCI Express bus. Does that mean that I can upgrade the video card ?
If yes, what are the available options from NVIDIA ?
Thanks again
November 26th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
basepart,
What is the model number for your Qosmio laptop. Is it Qosmio G30/G35?
I believe this models come with integrated video card (when the video card is integrated into the motherboard). If that’s the case, you cannot upgrade the video card.
Check your laptop specifications. Find out if the video card is integrated.
November 21st, 2009 at 4:48 am
hi, I’m interested to upgrade the VGA in a Qosmio PQG32E-02K02WGE. Is it possible to install a better VGA ?
Thanks
November 18th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Judy,
Sounds like the LCD screen on the faulty laptop is working fine. Apparently the problem is somewhere on the motherboard.
It’s possible. I’ve seen failures like that before.
Recently I was fixing a HP laptop with very similar problem. And I went through the same steps as you did. New inverter, cable, LCD didn’t fix it (luckily I had a loaner laptop).
Finally, I found that my faulty laptop had a stuck lid close switch. The lid close button was pushed into the connector and the laptop “thinked” the display is closed even when it was open. It took me a while to figure out what’s going on because the lid close switch was hidden under the right hinge.
In my case, the switch was located on a separate board. Instead of replacing the switch, I simply unplugged it from the motherboard and the screen started fine.
Check the lid close switch. If it’s a button, try tapping on it. If nothing helps, I guess you’ll have to replace the motherboard.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Hi Repair man.. I have a HP zv6000 laptop that boots to a dim dark screen. Can be read with a flashlight. However video is okay when connected to an external monitor. I changed the inverter, same problem. Changed the video cable, same result. Before getting a new lcd, I connected the lcd of another laptop of the same kind, same result. I also connected the lcd screen of the original laptop to the other laptop and it came on fine. (resulting in okay lcd and backlight).
Can just the video cable connection on the laptop to the lcd be bad, but work to an external monitor? Can this be fixed, or do I need a new motherboard?
Thanks.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Fred,
Sounds like a problem with the motherboard.
Most likely the heat sink is clogged with dust and the laptop overheats. Clean the heat sink and cooling fan with compressed air and try running same tests again. Most likely the laptop will stay on after cleaning the cooling module.
Maybe it’s normal for that particular test? If the laptop works fine with Linux (in normal resolution), I assume the video card operates properly.
Although, the description sounds like a problem with the video card.
I don’t think so.
I doubt that your problem is related to the CPU. Check the heat sink a clean it. As I said before, most likely the heat sink is clogged with dust.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I have an HP 6715s: AMD Mobile Sempron 3600+, ATI X1250 video integrated, 2GB RAM, 8GB Disk.
It has a disk failure (disk recognized neither by BIOS nor by diagnostic programs on the UltimateBootCD, verified by swapping disks with another notebookand successfully booted Ubuntu Linux).
There seems to be other problems as well, however:
1. When I run memory and CPU diagnostics from the UltimateBootCD, the air coming from the vent gets hotter all the time and the fan gets louder. At some point the system simply switches off. These diagnostics run okay on the balcony at an ambient temperature of 10°C.
2. Some of the diagnostics on the UltimateBootCD switch the display into a different mode (I don’t know which). A garbled grid pattern and an appears on the screen (some pixel pattern repeated in each character cell). One can see that some text is being written to the screen, but this is not legible. The display is okay in the boot or DOS mode, however, and it was also okay in Ubuntu. I could not try all resolutions, however.
About three months ago the machine got quite hot when my wife and daughter were watching a movie on the bed – they probably restricted the airflow. I switched it off immediately as soon as I noticed this and let it cool of. After that it worked fine again.
Could be that all the above symptoms are related to this event?
Could it be the cause of the disk failure?
Could the CPU have been damaged, resulting in it getting hot sooner? Or perhaps the heat sink paste?
Could be the cause of the display problem? This only seems to affect a mode that’s not normally used on the computer. Can I expect this problem to spread?
Thanks
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:44 am
sanjeet kumar,
It’s hard to tell what’s going on because this is not a common failure.
I think when you have multiple images on the same screen, it’s related to the LCD screen failure, otherwise you would have 6 way split screen on the external monitor too.
I think you have 6 way split screen because of the LCD screen failure.
This part of the description does sound like a problem with the video card, but it could be just a coincidence.
I wish you have another LCD screen for test. Without test equipment you’ll have to guess.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
6 WAY SPLIT SCREEN
i have lenovo y510 7758 44Q
i m having problem with the display.
i m getting 6 way identical small screens on my LCD display
booting and everything is in that display only.
when connected to external monitor found single screen but fluctuating and distorted.
i have NVIDIA Geforce 8400M GS inbuilt graphics chipset with 128 MB memory.
after all your article it seems there is a failure in my graphics card so i needed to replace it.
so plz suggest me where to get the card and the approx. cost for the card.
thanks in advance…
October 29th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Mark,
I’m not familiar with this Sony model at all.
If the Nvidia Geforce card is a discrete modules, you can replace it without replacing the whole motherboard.
You can try reconnecting the card, maybe it’s not making good contact with the motherboard (if it’s a discrete card).
Have you tried reinstalling Vista from scratch?
October 27th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Hi Repair man,
I have a sony Vaio Sz433N with a Nvidia Gefore 7400 go graphics card in it (Vista 32bit OS). The laptop runs a dual card system with an Intel 945 family media accelerator which is controlled by a stamina/speed switch. The problem is the laptop appears to have lost all communication with the nvidia card and doesn’t detect it when new drivers are installed. I suspect the Nvidia Card has failed. The result is the laptop only detects the Intel card and gaming performance is reduced.
Is it possible to replace the card with a straight replacement /new card or, is this a problem you have heard of before and the card is recoverable.
Any advice is appreciated
October 17th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Hope,
If there is no video on the external or internal screens, most likely it’s ether memory or motherboard problem.
Try removing memory modules from each slot one by one. Test laptop with each memory installed separately, it’s very unlikely that both modules failed at the same time. If one of the memory modules is bad, the laptop will start when another one is installed.
If reconnecting, replacing memory doesn’t help, most likely your problem is related to the video chip failure. That means the whole motherboard has to be replaced.
There is a chance that HP will fix it at no charge, check out this post.
Free repair for some out-of-warranty HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario laptops
October 16th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Having the same problems as everyone with the HP Pavilion dv6000 not showing a picture. Is there a way to fix it without replacing the motherboard?
October 10th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Joel,
Could you provide the laptop mode number PSPAGU-??????
I will look up for VGA boards listed for this laptop.
VGA boards are not cheap.
October 6th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Hi Repair Man!
I have a Toshiba p105-S9337 laptop with a Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GS 256mb video card in it… I am curious if I can upgrade to a better video card with 512mb video ram. I’ve been doing some reading and found that the nVidia G71M-U, with 512MB VRAM (Part# A000006860 or A000039750) is the only option for this, can you confirm that? I also am only able to find them at various parts dealers online at ridiculous prices (between $700-$1000 USD! I only payed $600 for this laptop!)… There is currently nothing wrong with my laptop, besides its inability to play modern PC games even at the lowest resolution and settings without poor FPS.
What would you suggest? Any way I can improve my gaming performance would be amazing. Thanks in advance!
October 1st, 2009 at 12:56 pm
GHJHVBNNBHG,
There is no simple answer. Could be one of the following:
1. Software issue. Back up all personal data and reinstall Windows from scratch.
2. Bad connection between keyboard cable and motherboard. Try reconnecting the cable.
3. Bad keyboard. Replace the keyboard.
4. Failed keyboard controller on the motherboard. Replace the motherboard.
September 28th, 2009 at 5:18 am
KEY BOAD NOT WORKING
September 27th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Jaime Olivett,
Here’s the part number for your video card: V000110400
This is the only card listed for your Qosmio F45 (Model No. PQF46U-00K005).
Google the part number and find the seller.