BSOD and Artifacts

Hawkdemon

Reputable
Mar 6, 2014
23
0
4,520
Immediately I want to thank you for reading my issues here as it may seem like a long read. I've had the computer Since March of 2007. Alienware.

My Problem has started in October and been dealing with it since. I began getting artifacts on the screen and then BSOD saying "display driver stopped responding and failed to recover" I was running Vista 32bit with all the current drivers and updates. My video card was Nvidia Geforce 7950 Gt. Here is everything I've tried in the last 5 months with time in between because of money. I thought the video card just finally died. So I bought a Nvidia Geforce 7950 GX2. Still got the same issues. So I tried replacing all the RAM. Still same Issue. Everything online points to it being driver issuses So I got Windows 7 SP1 and did a clean install. Same Thing. I've done all sorts of temp tests and nothing is overheating. I've updated every driver possible.

The only time I can get the Computer working right without having to be in Safe Mode (which I'm in now) is when I uninstall the video card from the device manager and restart the computer. The Computer will load beautifully with absolutely no problems and work fine. It will discover new hardware on start up and request to restart. If I don't restart the computer works fine and I will not get artifacts or BSOD. when I do restart then is when everything goes back to crap when the drivers load. I'm at my wits end over the last few months and cannot afford a new pc or to have pc repair shop look at it cuz they cost way too much.

System Specs.
Windows 7 SP1
Intel Core 2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz
3GB RAM
motherboard: nforce 680i sli
video card: GeForce 7950 GX2
 
Solution
Where did you get the 7950 x2 from? It could also broken, have you got any other PC's to try it on? It could also be that the PSU is on it's way out or worse the motherboard is failing.

Hawkdemon

Reputable
Mar 6, 2014
23
0
4,520
I did get the graphics card refurbished....I was thinking of getting a GeForce 8800 GTX. Its suppose to be DX10 so it would work nicely on Windows 7. Is there any program to test the power supply to see if that's it? Is there any way to test the motherboard? Thank you for your time.


 

Hawkdemon

Reputable
Mar 6, 2014
23
0
4,520
If anyone cares here is the solution. It was a bad 2nd video card. I went and found a used GeForce 8800 ultra on ebay for 30 bucks and installed it and everything works great now.