Major computer trouble!

[asimov]

Hi Guy's
Iv'e been having a lot of trouble with my computer the last few months. I though I'd solved the prob. but it's back...So before I go looking for my 10 lb sledge-hammer, I though I'd perhaps ask one of you puter wizz's to kindly help if you can..

The symptom's: I can be doing something on the puter ie: looking at a webpage usually, seeing I'm nearly always on-line,(but I dont have to be on-line for this to happen!) All of a sudden, the monitor screen will go blank....sometimes with different colored VERtical lines....There ALWAYS vertical lines IF I get them. To explain what I mean further here...the last time it happened (10 mins ago) I was in iceinspace typing a reply to a thread (such as this box I'm typing in right now) when the monitor screen went 'blank'.... the colour of the blank screen was the same light blue colour as THIS box I'm typing in with thin vertical black lines about 50mm apart. Iv'e had this happen in other sites as well, where the box might have a red background, & if I get the blank screen...the colour of the screen will be RED! It seems to be a random event weather I get the vertical lines or not. That's GOT to be some kind of clue, that watever the colour the back-ground is coincides with the color of the blank screen!?

All the experts told me it was the monitor....until I tell them the computer stops responding to all commands from the keyboard when the screen go's blank! Iv'e tried ctrl + alt + delete....no response, you can hit every key till dooms day, it wont matter...no response! That effectively cancels out the monitor, doesn't it??

I was at my wits end 3 mths ago....I had it figured to be a hard-ware fault somewhere in the box...I have 2 sticks of RAM installed....I tried taking one out & tested it for a week. Still had the dreaded SCREEN.....swapped the sticks of RAM over....tested it for a week.....NO SCREEN! It seemed to have fixed it! The stick of RAM was on it's way out. Or so I thought. Iv'e been running with one stick ever sinse...BUT!! In that time, Iv'e got the screen 6 or 7 times....NOT as often as I used to before taking that stick out.....But it's STILL doing it!!:bashcomp: just not as regularly *sigh* So the prob is still there.

I know a lot of hacking/tweaking 'secret's' lol & Iv'e tried quite a few to try to get this prob to go away...I'm over-clocking the ol' girl too....but that's not the cause. I had this screen trouble before I started over-clocking...Got the 2 IDE device's activated...got the extra 30meg by nominating the puter as a server..swap file bigger than default, got the RAM de-fragger running, Cache cleaned every night, de-frag C: once a week....blah blah....nothing makes any difference! Obviously not a system problem as such, but a hard-ware problem?

Anyone seen this,or heard of it...?? :scared2:

Pentium 3 750Mhz genuineIntel X 86 family 6 model 8 stepping 6
248 MB RAM (was 512 I think, before turfing the other stick)
19459MB on C: (FAT32) Generally hovers around 65-70% system resources free.

Advice/help/comments MUCHLY appreciated!:D Dont suggest a really sharp 5LB axe.....cos' it's nicely sharpened, & ready for some ACTION!! :rofl:


:bashcomp: :bashcomp: :bashcomp: :bashcomp:

[Striker]

VIDEO CARD......sounds like the problem....but looking at those system stats the video will be on board meaning its on your mother board....

Go into your hardware device and tell us what it says under dispay adapter.

[vindictive666]

hi

it could be your graphics card have you got access to a another you can try?
have you overclocked youre graphics card ? id so put it all back to normal ?
or you might have to reformat reinstall the operating system sound like its your graphics card to me though (try a different graphics card first ?)
could allso be corrupted drivers ? uninstall the graphic drivers reinstall ?

cant be youre ram because if it was your computer wouldnt even start up :)

[davidpretorius]

what version of windows, it does sound like video card, but sporadic stalls of the system on versions of windows prior to windows 2000 are common. Microsoft when releasing windows 2000 and XP said as part of their selling speel that under these new operating systems, the need to reboot daily or weekly would not be necessary.

[acropolite]

Sounds to me like the videocard. I suggest that as a first step you take the covers off, dust everything off with compressed air or a soft brush and reseat the video card making sure it's pushed into it's slot ll the way. If you've got onboard video then the problem could be memory related.

[Striker]

If by any chance you have a Nvidia chipped video card go to here and download the latest drivers.

Your after version 77.72 if you have these type of cards.

http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

[asimov]

Morning all! Yep...the vid card is built-in to the mother board...not just a matter of swapping it out.

The display adapter: NVIDIA Aladdin TNT2

Pulled the over-clocking back to normal a week ago....sorry, forgot to mention that bit in my first post. But as stated...the prob started long before the over-clocking.

I have the biggest 'crasher' David....98SE I definately know all about the 'sporadic' stalls lol.

Ok...if it's the Vid card, what's my options if it's part of the mother board? Would the graphic's card be part of the mother board too...as I suspect?

Re-formatted twice in the last 2 months..

[Striker]

yep go to that site and follow the guide...first graphics driver the step 2 TNT 2 then windows 98 and download version 77.72...you will have to reboot after instalation and also some of you graphics setting may need changing after rebooting.

[asimov]

Did the dust-off.....I have a mother-board flash up-date link...just not game to try it..

[Striker]

Some on board video motherboards have another AGP port to add another video card and dissable the one you have on board...but I dont like your chances.

[davidpretorius]

dare i say it, back up your data, try the updates for video and mothergoard, but i would be looking to go a new unit. It would not be worth getting a new motherboard given prices of new dells (starting at $699) as an example

[asimov]

This thing has been a lemon from day dot....I dont like my chances with ANYTHING I do with this piece of excretement! lol

[Striker]

If all fails....throw it off a high rise building...I would like to see the result if you dont mind....oh and make sure knowone is standing below.......lol

Some Video footage would be great....

[asimov]

Thanks very much guys for your help...I appreciate it!:thumbsup:

[asimov]

With that point in mind....can one up-load AVI on this site? If not, will you settle for some nice totally gone off the deep end mad axe-man chopping it into pieces the size of 20cent pieces??

[davidpretorius]

how much space for avi do you need? i can setup an area under precons.com/iis say precons.com/iis/members/asimov etc

[elusiver]

asimov u could try find a 2nd hand pci graphics card.. im sure there are a few around.. i used to have a box full of them.. but i threw em out.. try ebay.. maybe worth $10 or so to get going.. also.. in the bios you might have an option to select how much memory to assign to the vga card.. u could try scale that down.. it my be an issue with the way it's addressing.

el :)

[asimov]

uuum...ok...NEXT!! Just installed....or tried to install the new driver, it said 'no way' not doing it cos' the video card wasn't a chip-set blah blah....It may as well have said you ain't gettin' salt on your chip's. lol. I think it was saying it's the wrong DRIVER??

I have a choice 0f 2 or 16 colour's....I cant use my picture publisher piccy editor soft-ware...I can hardly even read what I'm typing here cos' this back-ground colour in this box is like looking at a heavily pixeled pic! limited to 640X480 screen size lol

[asimov]

:bashcomp: :bashcomp: :help2: :sad:

[acropolite]

John, with respect to the honourable contributors of this thread, the problem may be none of the above. 98SE wasn't that bad an OS; it was ME that was the lemon. If you have the time and expertise I sugest that you reinstall the OS, from scratch, which need not necessarily involve reformatting your HDD or even transferring your data (just delete the entire windows and program files directories. If the problem's apparent after reloading then it's most likely a hardware fault; if not continue loading until the problem reappears. I have found on many occasions problems such as this are the result of a bad driver, poorly written application or interrupt or other hardware conflict. I have also seen many motherboards of that vintage that are poorly behaved under win98 but run flawlessly once XP is installed. That said your M/B will not necessarily be compatible with XP; upgrade to XP would be a suck it and see approach. This of course assumes that you have already exhausted all virus and spyware possibilities and checked the CPU and power supply fans as they have a habit of stopping and causing crashes due to overheating.

[asimov]

Well now that You mention that, in the bios I notice it has 2 fans listed..#2 fan is spinning at zero revs...Yet when you get into the tower/box both are spinning! I have to do something here obviously, like either load my old driver back on or try & find the correct driver for this card..Although, In order to find out weather on not it was my old driver screwing things up, I better stick with this minimum requirement driver for a few days..

[asimov]

Now...if you all wouldn't mind tellin' me where striker is hiding out?? :evil2: :evil: :wink2: :innocent:

[acropolite]

BTW John,it's good practice to uninstall any existing driver before loading a different one.

[asimov]

Did that Phil, as well as the anti-virus...but thanxx anyway..

[ballaratdragons]

John,

You have the same problem as me!!!!

Either Blackscreen (well, yours is coloured) or freezing of the current screen, Freezing up constantly (every 10-15 minutes), Nothing works on the keyboard or mouse etc. etc.

About the same set-up too. Mine is Celeron, 700 mhz, running Windows 98SE etc. etc.

The pooter guy fixing mine can't solve it yet. (I am presently using his loaner pooter).

He has put my harddrive into this pooter and it worked for about 2 hours, then it carked it! It says it is corrupted. I can't open it to move stuff from my old HD to this HD.

I've also done the usuals: AVG daily, Adaware daily, De-frag weekly etc.

He is coming out again on Tuesday to have another crack at it.

This is why I am trying to get another pooter!!!! This thing has had it's day. And like yours, was a dud from day one.

[asimov]

Damn man! Mine's still running at least! gotta be thankful for something I guess??
Just when I thought computer's operated by LOGIC!?......This puter tells me otherwize lol..

Thing's are looking semi ok though...Aint had the dreaded screen for at least 3 hrs....ever sinse I uninstalled my original driver...it's still not logical though! It came good when I took the second stik of memory out too....Hmmmm....I'm waiting for the SCREEN to hit & not go away....lol. If it doe's you WILL receive pic's of me going ape with the axe!! I guarantee it..

[ving]

hi john... seems we are all barking up the right tree... it could be that you have the wrong drivers for the vid card (as already said). it could also be that you cooked it due to the overclocking. the tnt2s are pretty good when it comes to OCing but they can be cooked.
Does you problem hapen in safe mode? if you havent tried it then do so... we can see for sure if the vid card is the problem then.