Results 1 to 6 of 6

Thread: Major Graphical Problems

  1. #1
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Swindon, England
    Posts
    12

    Major Graphical Problems

    About a week ago I started noticing random characters appearing on the first screen of the boot sequence (where my graphics card information is displayed).

    No aparent lack of performance initially, then the graphical problems got worse. The Dell splash screen also started to have either additional (non-English) characters or chunks missing, followed by a completely useless XP user login screen.

    If I'm lucky I can now get into windows (depsite these problems) 1 boot out of 5. Then it is pot-luck. I'm plagued by lock-ups, flickering screens or screens going black and then back to normal. Have also seen a hazy taskbar.

    The problems seem worse the longer the machine is on and, perhaps not surprisingly, if I use apps such as WinDVD (which totally locks the system and I have now unistalled).

    Even the dos command prompt screen has errors in it. Not being overly technical, it seems this is a low level problem.

    Card is a GF4 ti 4200 OTES 128mb RAM - have very latest Nvidia drivers and dx9. Have blown the dust out and reseated (to AGP) three times.

    Have performed a full system scan with Norton (after live update) and no viruses.

    My guess is a graphics card problem. Unfortunatley, if I want to send it back and it turns out not to be faulty, then I will be stuck with carriage costs.

    Any ideas ? Is there any way to narrow the problem down ?

    Thanks.
    If it aint broke, play around with it.

  2. #2
    Ultimate Member AllGamer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2001
    Posts
    16,305
    Are you OC-ing your video card and/or the CPU?

    that's normal if you do, else RETURN the video card to the store immediately and get an ATI instead

    i7-3970X, Corsair H80, 32GB G.SKILL, ASUS RAMPAGE4 Formula, VG278H(3x27")+3D Vision2, EVGA GTX 690(x2), OCZ ZX1250W, 256GB Vertex4(x2), Seagate 3TB(x5), Antec LanBoyAir, Logitech G510, G600, Z560THX, T.Flight Hotas, PZ35, Sennheiser PC163D, TrackIR5

  3. #3
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Swindon, England
    Posts
    12
    No o/c, everything running at default speeds as out of the box.

    The only other thing that occurred to me was to run a scan disk. That came up with some security descriptor errors (whatever the heck they are) but I could not fix them because, on reboot, the error checker stopped at about 10% of phase 2.

    Fortunately, a friend had recommended Norton Ghost and I had a week old image of the hard drive so restored that. Now no descriptor errors and on first reboot, no wierd characters.

    Will keep an eye on things as it all seems too easy.

    Ever the optomist, is this an early sign of the hard-drive failing ?
    If it aint broke, play around with it.

  4. #4
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Swindon, England
    Posts
    12
    Ha - spoke too soon.

    Rebooted this morning and the same old garbled junk again, has taken me half an hour to finally get into windows !

    I did borrow a basic PCI graphics card from work though and that is now installed. Once again, the problem seems to have gone but only a few more reboots can confirm that.

    My questions for you experts out there are:

    1. How do I know if it is my original graphics card that is failing and not the AGP slot/motherboard (now that a basis PCI slot card seems ok)

    2. Or if not a graphics problem, how can I work out whether the HDD is ok ? (scandisc now does not give any errors).

    Any more comments would be much appreciated.
    If it aint broke, play around with it.

  5. #5
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Northampton, England
    Posts
    22
    I know that this is a long time since the original problem, but I have the answer if you never found a satisfactory one...

    I've just experienced the same problem with my send Siluro ti4200 OTES. This was a warranty replacement for my original one at around the same time as yours went wrong in May. Same problem and everything. I surmised after a while that it was a heat related issue with the card, as it was fine on the first boot of the day ( leave my PC on all the time ).

    Well this weekend the same thing happened again. And by pure coincidence, ( not ! ) its been seriously hot here in the UK. same problem as last time exactly.

    I just called Scan, who are the retailer I use, and their Tech support said that there is a known problem with version 1 and 2 of the OTES card, in that the fan vibrates a little and loosens sufficiently to allow a gap to appear between the heatsink and the chip, thus over heating.

    So, here goes... Third time lucky. Apparently they now know to only send out the latest vewrsion with as a replacement !

    Only problem now is a few days without playing counterstrike ! LOL

    Mark.

  6. #6
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Swindon, England
    Posts
    12
    Thanks for taking the time to respond.

    I sent the card back and it was diagnosed as faulty. Went for a Gainward GF4 ti 4800 Se Golden Sample as a replacement....that was dead on arrival. Eventually got one that worked and now happily back to playing MOHAA !

    Steve
    If it aint broke, play around with it.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •