corrupt display (occasionally)

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

"Daddio8itall" <Daddio8itall@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7B5C904F-1A44-437E-A419-B77D0A7292FE@microsoft.com...
> Yikes! I've got a problem with severely corrupted display (weird lines of
> repeated random character[?] across screen). Corrupt lines intersecting
> mouse
> position appear in wrong RBG. Very strange! Began as game crash in Arx
> Fatalis (now fixed), now happens on occasional vendors video demo and
> espesecially when starting up computer after it has been off for some time
> (to cool off?). Startup problem goes away after 15-20 miutes runtime and
> reboot, and used to be avoided via booting into safe mode for "warm-up."
> Now,
> problem appears even in safe, which eliminates (IMO) VC related probs. Any
> help, please???
>
> sys summary -->> XP Home/Pro dual boot, 2.6P4 in hyper mode@800FSB, MSI
> 875P, Gainward FX5700 Ultra Gold Label @ factory enhanced setting
> (500/950Mhz), dedicated pagefile partition of 3072Mb, 1024Mb PC3200 DDR,
> SP2,
> all patches/drivers current (far as I can tell...)
>
> Thx
> Daddio8itall


Sounds like a hardware problem. I'd guess either video card or memory.

Just for the fun of it, open the case and make sure the video card an memory
are seated fully.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

"D.Currie" wrote:

> Sounds like a hardware problem. I'd guess either video card or memory.
>
> Just for the fun of it, open the case and make sure the video card an memory
> are seated fully.

Thanks, tried both already w/no improvement. Also, all sys monitors
(msinfo32, dxdiag, etc.) report everything as OK. I too suspected vid card
until my homespun "boot into safe mode-workaround" failed to avoid corrupted
screen this AM. Safe mode boots using generic VGA(w/out graphics card
drivers), right? Any other ideas? I've got a couple screenshots but can't
figure out how to attach them here. Can that be done?

Thx again

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

"Daddio8itall" <Daddio8itall@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:42448B23-77A5-4E58-AA53-90DC67009E92@microsoft.com...
>
>
> "D.Currie" wrote:
>
>> Sounds like a hardware problem. I'd guess either video card or memory.
>>
>> Just for the fun of it, open the case and make sure the video card an
>> memory
>> are seated fully.
>
> Thanks, tried both already w/no improvement. Also, all sys monitors
> (msinfo32, dxdiag, etc.) report everything as OK. I too suspected vid card
> until my homespun "boot into safe mode-workaround" failed to avoid
> corrupted
> screen this AM. Safe mode boots using generic VGA(w/out graphics card
> drivers), right? Any other ideas? I've got a couple screenshots but can't
> figure out how to attach them here. Can that be done?
>
> Thx again

That eliminates drivers as the issue, but it doesn't eliminate the hardware
itself beginning to fail. Since it's better after a short warm-up, my guess
is that there's something that's not making full contact until it heats and
expands, like a small crack in one of the connections on the video card. And
not necessarily something you'd be able to see if you looked.

Memory errors can also cause some interesting video malfunctions, but I'd
consider that less likely. But it would be worth the test if you have more
than one stick of ram to remove them one at a time and see if you've still
got the errors.