I own an older 32-bit Dell XPS 410 that I intended to use for gaming. Currently, I have a ATI Radeon 4000 series card installed, along with a Core 2 Duo and Ubuntu 12.10.
I'm fairly certain that my problem is a GPU failure - but before I spend money on a new one, I want to make sure other components aren't the problem/if it would be cheaper just to buy a new PC.
Here are my symptoms:
Computer power button remains orange (usually green when successfully started.) A fan gets increasingly faster until powered off.
Monitor remains black when started, receiving no signal.
When powered on, the computer will power itself off near instantly, and then turn on again.
If startup is successful, sometimes the screen will become jittered and unusable unless restarted.
Is this just a GPU failure, or something more extensive like the motherboard?