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Wierd graphics problems... Please help!

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  • Graphics Cards
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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Anonymous
a b U Graphics card
January 14, 2002 9:36:23 PM

hey all, thanks alot in advance for reading...

a bit of background info:
last year (end of november) i bought a P4 1.5 w/ RDRAM and a QDI i850 mobo with a Powercolor GeForce2 Ti. i'm using windows xp.

This past weekend, I used my comp for 36 hours straight. no biggie right? Nothing's been overclocked, everything is as exactly as it was when it was built. (if it helps, i was using internet explorer, macromedia flash and director, and ripping a DVD during the night using DVD2SVCD).

after 12 hours of work and 12 hours of dvd ripping and another 5 hours of work, i began to get strange yellow "streaks" (verticle lines about 1 inch apart) whenever i scrolled in internet explorer and there was white in the background. it happened for a few hours like that. then the streaks spread to windows explorer. then it spread to wherever white was.

so i rebooted... in the GeForce2 nvidia bios there were 2 ascii happy faces on the screen... and they were still tehre when my comps bios/post when through.. and then i could see a bit of discoloration on the windows xp loading screen where they were.

when i got into windows i could see the streaks, as well as little black dots (smaller the size of this period .) in an almost grid like formation, 1 inch apart width wise, 1 cm apart height wise.

i tried another monitor, the prob was still there.

i tried to use another vid card to check the agp port, but (i think) my i850 board has a 1.5V slot, whereas i could only find AGP cards for a 3.3V slot (my ati rage fury). so the cards couldn't fit.

i can report that there seems to be no problems now... i am using a matrox millennium pci 2 MB card... so PLEASE help me ASAP!

i read somewhere it may be a problem wiht the powersupply? any way to check that?

thanks alot in advance again!

More about : wierd graphics problems

January 15, 2002 5:08:38 AM

Wow, this is a wierd one. Well not sure what can be causing it since it was same on another monitor. I would try scanning for viruses, not likely it but just to be sure. As for checking the PS, try removing some PCI cards and maybe any extra cr-rom's or hard drives and see if the problem is still there.

Crap, all the good ones are already taken.
January 15, 2002 7:57:41 AM

Smiley faces in the BIOS??? I'd be updating my virus definitions and scanning that puppy. Although, I've never heard of a videocards BIOS being infected, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Maybe you could get the BIOS file from your card manufacturer and try flashing it again?
Related resources
January 15, 2002 11:45:19 AM

Re-Flash the bios in your video card with the same version that's already in it. If this doesn't fix the problem immediately, return the card.
January 15, 2002 12:25:02 PM

tell us how did it go anything you do...

<font color=green>
*******
*K.I.S.S*
*(k)eep (I)t (S)imple (S)tupid*
*******
</font color=green>
January 15, 2002 1:14:49 PM

Does it behave the same way after you got some sleep? 36 hours in front of a computer screen may do crazy things to your eyes.

I'd say go with a virus scan.
January 15, 2002 10:13:52 PM

I'm assuming no mushrooms or acid are involved...hehe
Anonymous
a b U Graphics card
January 15, 2002 11:18:14 PM

first off thx all for your help... and no acid, shrooms or e or anything else (besides a lot of coke (THE DRINK!) and iced tea) had anything to do with the problem!

the problem was still happening after i left the computer off for 24 hours. i virusscanned on the day before it happened, and i re-scanned today just to make sure.

so the card's going in for RMA!

thanks!
January 15, 2002 11:49:05 PM

You didn't try flashing the BIOS? Oh well, RMA is probably a better fix anyway because even if flashing fixed it you gotta wonder what screwed it up in the first place.

Good luck.
January 16, 2002 2:04:28 AM

RMA is best because the video memory is fried.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>
January 16, 2002 3:21:11 AM

For future reference, how do you know it's fried? Have you seen this before?

Also, I'm confused about the smiley faces still, LoL.
!