I turned my old compaq presario 7598 into a linux box a few weeks ago. I've been running it just fine for a couple weeks, but today my 17" monitor started flickering the image and would turn off for a few minutes, then come back on, then turn off for a longer time, etc. Now I can't get it to come on at all. The monitor LED just blinks on and off. I hooked my 19" monitor up to the linux box and I had the same problem, so I know it has to be something wrong with the computer.

Do you think I would be able to get the monitor working on the box again if I installed a PCI video card? (no AGP slots). I've heard that some older motherboards don't let you use other video cards and have mandatory onboard video.

Any help would be much appreciated.