"If it Ain't Broke Don't Fix it" if it is broke, welcome to Hell

Agreed, There are so many variables with a PC and so many complications and solutions sound the same, and the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is always great advice. Symptoms can branch out into several more problems and before you know it, you have a dozen things not working and then trial and error for the novice begins.Yep, one day it's all cake and pie and the next days its a poop sandwich.

"The PC was just fine, really, it was running fine just 3 seconds ago...."

Upon purchase I added a Hard Drive, PSU and Vid Card (Radeon HD 4670 PCI-E) this has been over a year ago. Some time ago the Vid Card would just stop sending a signal, Pc would stay on but no video. This would happen in a certain game that was played and would happen once every 5 times playing.

Recently the PC was powered up, but no video signal. The on-board video worked fine, I unplugged the cable from the video card to the integrated video. Re-booting, results were the same. BIOS shows PCI-E as primary, all drivers up to date. No heat issues, no PSU trouble. I have 3 PC's with Antec 650w PSU's and PCI-E video, I have done a lot of swapping. This led me to the conclusion the the MB or the PCI-E slot was bad. Actually, it led me to the million Tech forums and the billion people that post on these forums that are smarter than I.

It was suggested on one of these forums that other driver updates, PC, Vid Card, etc, etc, that the Video Bios and/or BIOS might need to be updated. There was a newer version of the Video BOIS. I read it as a newer or updated BIOS and flashed it. Flashing your BIOS is a really cool technical term that makes you sound like a real professional Geek, but if you don't know what you are doing you are just a geek wannabe and I am.

BSOD(Blue Screen of Death)after re-boot, that would flash the blue screen and then re-boot. System restore was suggested by several tech boards. Opinions and advice. One would try so hard to save money and fix something that isn't working right, he would listen to his dog for advice. Yes, grabbing at straws begins here.

System Restore, Rollback, Restore Point, Recovery Console, System Recovery, a smorgasbord of sounding the same but being slightly different. NO recovery Disks, there are restore files on a partition and of course there were no restore disks made when prompted upon purchase that would just make too much sense. After all, nothing bad has ever happened to me.

Okay, Restore point sounds safe, executed and time for re-boot...."Code Purple"..wonderful. No real reason here just frustration, pulled the Vid card and rebooted PC, "Code Purple". Between the Blue screen and the Purple error you would think a Smurf got caught in my PC. Next step, remove extra Hard Drive and that allowed me to boot up. PCI-E card and any PCI-E card I tried was not working, just the integrated. PCI-E card was never recognized, it's like it did not exist.

Next step which was a few steps actually and not in any order, but repeated for luck with abusive verbiage. Unplug PC, hold power button in for a few seconds, clear CMOS, Set BIOS to default, set PC upside down..okay that was the dogs idea, nothing changed. PC works fine with integrated video but will not recognize any card in the PCI-E slot.

I re-installed the extra Hard drive to try and figure out why "Code Purple" shows up with it only, and attempt the workarounds found here http://www.billoblog.com/billoblog/?p=152#comments. Who would have thought Tattoo's were that popular, and how crazy is that. The link is worth the read.

Nothing changed until I removed the HD and rebooted, the PCI-E slot worked. If I reboot the PC, the PCI-E slot does not work until I attach the extra HD and attempt to boot up, get the "Code Purple" error and reboot with out the extra HD. I have repeated this several times and its consistent.

So, at this point the fix is..keep the extra HD handy and if the PC powers down, jump through some hoops to get it operating.

After all I have been through, the workaround is like walking the dog.