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The following highly unfortunate scenario happened: My motherboard stopped recognizing my graphics card completely. It's a ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero. Yesterday it just suddenly turned off when I was gaming, and when I turned it back on, the white VGA Q-LED came on and I had no screen since. I tried everything, cleaning and re-seating, tried the other PCIe slots, tried a different graphics card, tried different cables with different monitors, tried updating BIOS with flashbios, nothing works. The white VGA Q-LED is on and no screen at all. I know the PC itself works fine otherwise, I could boot into windows and I could even blind-type my password, so the system is working (I could hear the login sound when I logged in blind), I just have no way of seeing what's going on.

I can even see my shared folders from my other PC, but nothing else. I think Remote Desktop is disabled, I cannot RDP to it. Also can't connect any other means, Telnet, SSH, everything seems to be disabled (thanks to Norton 360 no doubt). I do have TeamViewer installed (and I might be able to start it blind even) but I cannot see the code needed to connect...

Can anyone think of some means to somehow get a screen working without a graphics card? I don't plan to keep using this PC, but I do want to save my data and settings if possible from this OS.

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    What you refer to here as "VGA" isn't the graphics card? If so why call it the name of a protocol that later was wrongly associated with a specific connector that is very unlikely you're using with such hardware in 2022?
    – ChanganAuto
    Commented Mar 12, 2022 at 13:56
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    @Playbahnosh Correct terminology matters - it's not nitpicking, it actually does matter. General FYIs in case you're in interested in configuring something when this is resolved: Windows 10 doesn't have a telnet server, nor would it be recommended to install one since telnet is inherently insecure because it sends everything as plaintext with no encryption. Windows does support OpenSSH, but this must be manually configured, and would be recommended if needing remote access to your PC (configured with an SSH key, not a user passphrase)
    – JW0914
    Commented Mar 12, 2022 at 14:02
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    "I do want to save my data and settings if possible from this OS." ..... Remove the disk and get the data that way. Time honored method.
    – anon
    Commented Mar 12, 2022 at 14:10
  • @John That would work, except the drives are encrypted, I wouldn't be able to get my data if I just plug it into another computer. Also there are important settings and data on the machine that I can only see (and save) if I log in directly.
    – Playbahnosh
    Commented Mar 12, 2022 at 14:55
  • I’m a little confused about exactly what you’re experiencing. Are you seeing ANY video at all? Like when you first turn the computer on? How were you able to flash the BIOS if there was NO video at all? If the problem is just in Windows then focus on fixing windows (try safe mode). If there is NO video at all then fix the hardware. It’s really that simple. You said, “I tried everything,” in a way to sound like there is nothing else anyone else could or would try. I don’t agree. The video problem is certainly fixable.
    – Appleoddity
    Commented Mar 12, 2022 at 15:53

2 Answers 2

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If you have another computer available, you could use PsExec:

PsExec is a light-weight telnet-replacement that lets you execute processes on other systems, complete with full interactivity for console applications, without having to manually install client software.

This utility can work without any installation on the target computer. It only needs file and printer sharing to be enabled on both computers, and the remote machine to have set up the $admin share correctly (to provide access to its \Windows\ folder).

For more information see the article PsExec: What It Is and How to Use It.

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This is absolutely nuts, but hear me out: I managed to hack my own PC...

I have 2 PCs, so I was trying to somehow connect to the broken one remotely. It works aside from having no screen, but since RDP and everything else was disabled, it was kinda impossible to get in remotely.

However, I have Steam installed on both machines, and when I blind-logged into the broken one, Steam starts automatically. Then on the other one the small notification popped up "Remote play available", since I was logged in with the same account on both. This got me thinking... screen-sharing a game wouldn't really help me, since I need to somehow see the desktop to do anything. Then I noticed it: I have BitBurner installed, a small programming game. I realized, that it's basically just a browser window and can even see local files. I remote-played the game in Big Picture, and sure enough I found an option in the file menu to show the local game folder.

It actually opened an explorer window with the folder and the desktop! All in the remote-play window.

The window was tiny, only 640x480 since the system didn't recognize any video adapters, but it was there! Then I quickly turned on RDP, and I can now access my broken computer through remote desktop!

I know it won't make it any less broken, but at least now I can save my important data and get everything ready for the new PC...

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