my vnc connection - is it the graphics card?

[whatnow]

I've got an old server which I can connect to and I need to get some data off it. Not being very close to it physically means my only method of connection if remote desktop or vnc. Remote desktop is turned off, which is annoying but my vnc still works. however when I connect it looks like this:



And it doesn't seem very responsive, all the shares are working but I just can't physically control anything...

any ideas?

[Pegasus]

Turn the colour depth down on the VNC client

[Mr.James]

restart?

shutdown -i from a command prompt will bring up an interactive gui letting you add in the remote computer to shut down.

[whatnow]

Turn the colour depth down on the VNC client

I have tried connecting in all three default modes, Low Bandiwdth, medium and high-speed network with no difference on either. I did mess with using 8-bit colour or the encoding options but it didn't make much difference (or it was worse, i.e. no picture).

Does VNC use a graphics card to display? I assumed it did, even without a monitor present the graphics card still processed the visual side of the operating system?

restart?

shutdown -i from a command prompt will bring up an interactive gui letting you add in the remote computer to shut down.

I've restarted the machine, but it makes no difference.

What do you mean by shutdown -i, would I have to do that on the remote machine? I literally can't access anything. I tried some freeware RDC enabling software but it told me the remote machine doesn't Remote Desktop... I am 99% sure it does, that's how I used to connect to it, plus it's Windows xp pro.

I'm struggling to know what to do, I can see half-assed images, I can send a Ctrl&Esc command and I can see it's loaded the start menu but I can only see small distorted fragments and they are unclickable.

Are all these graphics card symptoms?

[whatnow]

rar, just managed to get access to this pc physically and I could see the person I've lent it to had taken the power supply out of the graphics card and plugged it into another HD. rebooted, problem solved.

It was naiive of me to think a graphics card is just for a monitor, no wonder a computer fails POST without one.

live and learn

[MsDG]

I know you have solved the problem, but you wanna get yourself a copy of Dameware mini remote. Its a million times better than VNC.

[Mr.James]

What do you mean by shutdown -i, would I have to do that on the remote machine? I literally can't access anything. I tried some freeware RDC enabling software but it told me the remote machine doesn't Remote Desktop... I am 99% sure it does, that's how I used to connect to it, plus it's Windows xp pro.

shutdown - i should be run from your machine. it will let you shut down the other computer.

is the firewall on the machine switched on? if it is make sure that port 3389 is open for rdp.