1. Try removing and re-seating the graphics card.

2. Remove and re-connect the VGA cable to the card.

Just a couple of suggestions.

Yep, tried that, no joy I'm afraid. 🙁 Pity.
The card looks in great condition, can't see anything visibly wrong with it at all.

Strange. 😖

Do you have another monitor that you can try on it? Some monitors might have parts of the VGA cable die out, losing some of the color information in the process. I had an old Sylvania F72 that did exactly that, though what happened was kind of the opposite: I lost the entire blue channel, making everything yellow and orange.

wildweasel wrote:

Do you have another monitor that you can try on it? Some monitors might have parts of the VGA cable die out, losing some of the color information in the process. I had an old Sylvania F72 that did exactly that, though what happened was kind of the opposite: I lost the entire blue channel, making everything yellow and orange.

I'm going to give this a shot! I have two other monitors I can dig out, plus two other video cables. I'll post back with an "edit" message in a couple of hours time. Thanks for the idea. 😀

Edit: No joy I'm afraid. I tried different monitors and cables (which work). Exactly the same problem - everything looks "blue and washed out looking". Must be the card, but I guess there's very little I can do about it. Shame. 🙁

If it has capacitors on it you can replace them.

Also check (with a magnifying glass if necessary) all the solder points, especially of the SMD.

I had a card shipped to me once. I popped it in and there were pixels with incorrect colours all over the place. I took it out, looked carefully and saw a SMD diode contact had broken on one end due to the shipping. Soldered it and the card worked perfectly.

samudra wrote:

If it has capacitors on it you can replace them.

Also check (with a magnifying glass if necessary) all the solder points, especially of the SMD.

I had a card shipped to me once. I popped it in and there were pixels with incorrect colours all over the place. I took it out, looked carefully and saw a SMD diode contact had broken on one end due to the shipping. Soldered it and the card worked perfectly.

I would like to learn some soldiering skills! 😀

But on this occasion, I had a really careful look at the card. Unfortunately, I just couldn't see anything that looked broken.

On a related theme, I just tested a Diamond Voodoo 1 Monster PCI card, and that was broken. The pin connectors around the TMU chip were smashed up. Amazingly however, the card installed OK. It's only when I ran the Diamond test utility, that the test animation image looked weird. Initially, I suspected a driver problem, but I swapped out the smashed up card with a working Diamond, and the test image was fine.

Those leads on big chips are separated not even half a mm (just like the Tseng to the left). Probably some were touching and they were not the most acute ones.

You could try separating them carefully using a razor or thin piece of metal.

samudra wrote:

Those leads on big chips are separated not even half a mm (just like the Tseng to the left). Probably some were touching and they were not the most acute ones.

You could try separating them carefully using a razor or thin piece of metal.

Actually, when I said that those "chip leads" were smashed up, perhaps I should have also said that some were missing too! 😵

Edit: Quote: "....a SMD diode contact had broken on one end due to the shipping." This is something that bugs me about ebay sellers. I've had motherboards sent to me in padded mailing envelopes before. Crazy. I now ask the seller before I pay, if they can put the items in to better containers, and offer to pay any extra they need for this. Seems to work well. I'd recommend this approach. 😀

Hah! I don't even want to know why you still tried that.

Curious what burned plastic smells like?

It depends on the shipping costs and the price of the item really. Shipping a motherboard in a jiffy bag is batshit insane though.

samudra wrote:

Hah! I don't even want to know why you still tried that.

Honestly, I didn't notice the damage until after my tests had failed and I took a closer look at it! 😳

Giving this a bit more thought, the missing backplate on that card was a bit of a giveaway I suppose - the previous owner must have removed the only thing worth salvaging from it...

In future, I'll take a closer look at what I'm testing before I stick it in the mobo and turn on the power! 🤣