need help installing video card

[spazz31585]

see, my aunt brought her computer to me so i could set some stuff up on it.
well, when i hooked it all up, turned on the computer and the monitor, everything was going great. then all of a sudden the monitor shut off. i couldn't get it to get power anymore
oh well, i told her i had an extra one i would give her
only problem is, the intg video on it doesn't seem to work now
the monitor performs the self test perfect, but when connected to the system, i get an amber light as if it was in sleep mode

a friend of mine brought me several different video cards to try out to see if that would fix it
well, i found a couple that fit in the expansion slots (not sure if they are agp or pci or what though)
so i put one in, plugged in the monitor and turned on the system
it still doesn't work
i still get the same amber led
is there something i'm missing?
do i have to do anything other then just put the video card in the slot?
i'm really dumb when it comes to this kind of thing

 

[The_Other_One]

If you don't get anything with different video cards and monitors, the computer's probably dead...

Also, I don't suggest messing around inside if you don't know the difference between PCI and AGP... Not that it would make much of a difference with this machine.

 

[spazz31585]

see, the computer seems to work fine except for the video part
i know i talked to a guy today who was talking about how his sound card had 2 wires going to it, one for power and one for something else
i didn't know if video cards were the same way
and no, i don't know the difference between agp and pci
but, i'm very comfortable inside a machine
i've just never really had to learn the difference
whenever i needed to know what a customer had, i had all his details right in front of me
it's a lot easier to do this stuff when i'm at work versus being at home
at work, i have a whole bunch of tools to use
home, i have nothing

btw, this comp is about 7-8 years old...so i figure it's prolly agp
and it's an hp
i hate hp systems!
so hard to take apart and work with

 

[Blue]

btw, this comp is about 7-8 years old...so i figure it's prolly agp

Then It would prob. be PCI . Agp is a shorter brown slot and is at the top of all the slots. The pci slots are white and there are more of them.

Some videocards do need power hooked up to them yes but you'll see the connector on the end of the card (you cannot miss it).

You did remove the old card before inserting a new one right? Or is this onboard video? in which case dissable it when inserting another videocard.

 

[The_Other_One]

btw, this comp is about 7-8 years old...and it's an hp...

Those 2 things right there make me quite certain it's NOT AGP as mentioned.

Now, as for video, so you can still turn it on and you hear the single POST beep, heard the harddrive going, then hear it enter windows? There's a MUCH larger chance that the computer just died over the video card died. Besides, lets say it was the video...most of those are part of the main system's chipset. If the video did in fact die, I suspect more went with it.