What is going on with my computer visually

[angry12345]

I had assumed it was a video card problem...

It all started when i was getting a couple of errors from video card drivers that said they recovered. Finally, the computer screen went black and could not see anything. Reboot and sometimes the screen would come back. I used CPUID and Speed fan along with standard asus probe to see what temperature readings were for each core and each video card. Temps on cores never went above 45 degrees and vid card never went above 64 degrees (rated for 110 degrees). So no overheating

Step one: update all video card drivers, although ones were only 1 month old that i had been using. This did not solve the problem. Also hooked up another monitor to test.. black on that monitor too

Step two: maybe i had some wrong settings that went bad so i did a system restore. still had problem

Step three: i have an sli set up so i decided to remove the bridge and remove one video card to see if it was a bad video card. the problem happened with each video card

OK.. now it is happening more frequently and when i restart the computer sometimes i dont have internet connection, sometimes i get black screen with small red carrots all over. sometimes its just bars of pink/blue/green.

I should point out i did go online and have Trend-Micro run an online scan to verify no bugs

So if its not vid cards.. what is it?

Power supply is 800 watts and never had problem with 2 vid cards before so it would be odd that it would be doing this just as frequent with 1 vid card, plus the computer doesnt shut down when this happens 90% of time

Is it possible that the Bigfoot Networks K1 card is causing the problem? I had read one other person who had that sort of problem which he swore was Bigfoot related but everyone dismissed him

 

[eightdrunkengods]

"sometimes i get black screen with small red carrots all over. sometimes its just bars of pink/blue/green" This really sounds like a hardware issue. I've seen this sort of things with bad graphics cards. It could be a motherboard problem, I guess. My guess is that it's a hardware issue.

I would:

1) Clear CMOS to fix any silliness with BIOS settings. Frist flash your BIOS to the latest non-beta version (even if you already have the latest version).
2) Do a fresh install of windows to rule out a corrupt install. You'll also have to reinstall drivers so this will rule out software issues entirely. It will be best if you do this on a spare HDD (so that you don't lose your data).
3) Download Memtest86+ and install it on a jump drive (or floppy). Run the test overnight to make rule out a problem with your RAM.

 

[angry12345]

"sometimes i get black screen with small red carrots all over. sometimes its just bars of pink/blue/green" This really sounds like a hardware issue. I've seen this sort of things with bad graphics cards. It could be a motherboard problem, I guess. My guess is that it's a hardware issue.

I would:

1) Clear CMOS to fix any silliness with BIOS settings. Frist flash your BIOS to the latest non-beta version (even if you already have the latest version).
2) Do a fresh install of windows to rule out a corrupt install. You'll also have to reinstall drivers so this will rule out software issues entirely. It will be best if you do this on a spare HDD (so that you don't lose your data).
3) Download Memtest86+ and install it on a jump drive (or floppy). Run the test overnight to make rule out a problem with your RAM.

Yea.. sounds like hardware.. Id think it was the vid cards if i hadnt tested two different vid cards and got the same results, that or just really bad luck with two going out at same time

My concern is it is the motherboard.. the board isnt that old but Asus doesnt have any BIOS for a windows 7.. i had the latest with an Vista 64 version..

computer hasnt had any real trouble for 2.5 yrs i have had it.. not sure how or what corupted windows if that is the case. I do not think it is windows related cause I have gotten the black screen on initial boot up before too before windows loaded and happening more frequently

 

[eightdrunkengods]

computer hasnt had any real trouble for 2.5 yrs i have had it.. not sure how or what corupted windows if that is the case. I do not think it is windows related cause I have gotten the black screen on initial boot up before too before windows loaded and happening more frequently

I agree. IMO, it's still important to take the steps above to rule everything out. (You need to rule out failing HDD too.) It's really annoying to replace a component (especially a motherboard!) only to find out it was something else.

 

[clonazepam]

I had a 650 watt power supply feeding a 7900 gt sli rig. The power supply died, 1 card seemed fine but the other in seperate testing had the exact same symptom you described, multi-colored BIOS overlayed with multi-colored alpha-numeric gibberish. Took that card out and ran the single 7900 gt for a bit but soon had exact same problem.

 

[angry12345]

well now.. im leaning towards mobo.. going to try psu first though...

Went to run a memtest.. after 30 min.. black screen was back.. i left running trying to ponder how to get results from the memtest over night.. got up the next morning.. computer shut off.

started it back up.. black before bios.. restarted.. windows repair.. repairs.. restarts.. black.. restart.. reset bios .. black..
basically i cant even get to bios now (i did reinstall back in all components since I eliminated them as culprits so maybe it is a psu) still though even with some degradation id have though 850 watts was plenty for quad core 2 vid cards 1 hardrive (problem happened even with 1 vid card and no network card)

any other ideas?

 

[eightdrunkengods]

It sounds like you've basically done this but just to make sure - you want to:

Clear your CMOS. Use the motherboard jumper or the battery removal method.

Unhook all your drives (HDD, DVD, Floppy, whatever) and PCIe devices (video cards, USB controllers, Bigfoot network card, etc.) leaving only the PSU, CPU (and CPU cooler) and one stick RAM. If your motherboard doesn't have onboard video, then you'll have to leave one video card in. Try to boot up. If you can't get to BIOS, swap that RAM out with another stick. If it still doesn't work, try another RAM slot (still only one stick). If that doesn't help, swap the video card and try again.

If you can't get to BIOS, it's either your motherboard, PSU, or CPU.

If you've done this already, then, obviously, it's one of components necessary for POST (CPU, mobo, PSU, and maybe video card).

You might as well post your system specs at this point.

Do you hear any hear beeps while it's POSTing? These can point to one component or another.

There is a way to test a PSU with a multimeter. This might be worth your time if you happen to have a multimeter. There are good guides for it online.

 

[a-nano-moose]

I will vote for the PSU being flakey.

 

[angry12345]

from what i can tell.. psu

went from a nzxt 850 watt with 4 rails..

put in a corsair enthusiast series 750 watt 1 rail..

no problems so far with corsair..

i will say that my windows performance index went down from 7.4 to 6.7 on graphics.. not sure why on that..

 

[angry12345]

Best answer selected by angry12345.