My hand slipped while unplugging one of my hard drives from my system and I hit one of those electical (conductor?) thingies on the underside of my PCI express card -- those small insulated cylindrical towers found on many devices, most notably the motherboard.  I noticed it was bent to the side a little, and I straightened it out.    On my next boot up, I was in the BIOS and the system just turned off.  Everytime I power up now I get the video card beep code error (one beep followed by two quick ones).  Unplugged and reseated the video card, no dice.  

Think the video card is gone because I hit it?  

I would be inclined to say yes,  it has affected it.

If you had an extra video card laying around, you can verify the card is bad or the motherboard.

Answer to your question,  YES

you might have damaged the connection to that capacitor.  

Quoted: I would be inclined to say yes,  it has affected it. If you had an extra video card laying around, you can verify the card is bad or the motherboard. Answer to your question,  YES

Yeah, I know I may have to test out another card to be sure.  I do remember on my old MoBo I could bend those little capacitors a little (had to to get my CPU fan on) without problem.

This sucks.  

If you hit the capacitor (little round can shaped thingy) hard enough, it'll pull the leads out the bottom of it, tearing the mylar film INSIDE it, destroying it.


Good chance this is what happened.


If you're handy with a soldering iron and do it VERY carefully, you could, theoretically replace the cap, with one from radio shack, given you can GET the same value/type capacitor from there.

But yeah, you probably did mangle it, if it was enough to bend to the side, since they're usually mounted right flat onto the board, with no room for flex in the leads...

If its just a broken connection to a capacitor, it shouldn't be too difficult to solder. Or you could just use it as an excuse to buy a newer faster videocard