wacked out display

I believe this is a hardware post but honestly not sure. Could be software related.

Clients display every 4 hours or so just wackes itself out. What I mean by this and I've seen it twice. Monitor says solid green but all of a sudden there are vertical stripes black and white about 1.5 inches wide then another one I saw was colored strips about the same dimensions wide. First thing naturally I said was the monitor was dying but they said they tried 2 other monitors with the same results one monitor brand new out of the box.

Machine has xp sp2. Its a p3/800 with 512mb memory. Integrated graphics card.

Personally I am leaning toward the integrated graphics card not functioning properly. But also the reason why it might be h.d. or sft related is because it goes into chkdsk quite a lot and it does find file structure problems more than it should.

Am going to rebuild machine after I run diags on h.d. and put a new PCI graphics card in the box. Doesnt have agp.

Sorta just looking to see if anyone has seen these types of vertical stripes and it wasnt monitor related.

 

There are a few possible causes for such a problem, and you eliminated one that was important to know by trying other monitors.

I'd like to know if it does this when working on it or when it is left alone, or randomly. Also does it do it sooner if you do something heavily graphic like play a game or imaging.

My first thought is that it is your on board video system. Could be after it is on a certain amount of time or after a certain amount of use, it fails due to overheating. Overheating could not be its fault to start with and the heat source may be another component like your CPU, RAM or HDD.

Although you have specified what type of motherboard you have in your post i will elaborate on types of motherboard below, in case others with a similar sounding problem come here, so they are all covered.

There are 3 types of motherboards as far a video is concerned.

1 A M/B that has video onboard AND an AGP/PCIX slot for a video card,
2 A type that only has a slot for a video card and NO onboard video,
3 And a type with only on-board video and no slot for a video card (but they do have PCI slots). Like the one the thread poster has.

You need to try another video card.

If you had type 1 PC in the above list, you can simply install a video card and the BIOS should auto detect it is there and disable the onboard video.

If you had type 2 PC above, you simply would exchange the existing card with another,

And if you had type 3 PC above, You would have to get an older PCI video card, which is near impossible to buy new, and disable the onboard video in the BIOS manually. In this last case motherbaord replacement is most often needed due to lack of availability of PCI video cards.

IN all cases you will need to re-install drivers for any new card when it is in the PC. If your old video card had drivers or special apps that show up in Add/Remove Programs, you should remove them to be safe, before you put the new card in.

Anyway a faulty video onboard is my first guess at what is your problem.

 

Dez

Strange board. It has 3 pci slots with a cnr modem taking up the first slot so installing a new pci card there not possible unless I remove the cnr modem and install another pci modem in a different slot. It also has a slot above the first pci but it can connect to nothing on the board.

Tried installing a 128mb pci mx4000 card and windows did sorta come up but it died while it was loading just hung up.

Failure is random. You could be working on something or just sitting there and all of a sudden it goes out.

Unable to find the name of the board manufacturer but one chip says gfxpro with ami bios.

System feels cool cpu fan seems to be working okay. Just had a device failure when it was just sitting so will have to find out what device failed. System was put together by their son-in-law and honestly I dont understand what he did and why. Has a 80g primary, 30g secondary with 2 partitions on it with data. Makes really no logical sense especially when client using only 20% total of all drives.

 

Dez,

Here's a good source of legacy hardware such as inexpensive pci video cards. I don't believe it usually matters which slot you use.

 

dont make sense that the 128mb pci is hanging during the xp splash screen. the digital dots that go by when loading just stops.

i used to carry older pci cards but stopped when most systems no a days have agp. looked at temps and they seem within reason.

got me confused.

 

gghartman

Suggest you substitute a different memory stick. Doesn't sound like video problen if it won't boot, although more than one problem is likely. Assume you have cleaned case interior and reseated all cards and cables. If replacing video and memory doesn't slove the problem, suggest you consider mobo replacement when you rebuild. That may require a new cpu and memory too, but it's usually cheaper than a new computer.

 

Hi,

Seems to only happen during Windows. I would suggest that you identify the motherboard and get the manufacturers chipset drivers and video drivers. Windows has probably just installed what it thinks are the correct ones.

Would the client have the motherboard/chipset CD for it?

Press the Pause key at the second screen at startup (start tapping the key from power on). The second screen may have the motherboard model listed at the top of the screen, but it should be part of the BIOS code at the bottom of the screen. Everest may be able to identify it.

Matt
PS Try going to Safe Mode. You should be able to set the video adapter to a standard type in the Display settings and remove old drivers.

 

if it is the board dont think its worth it cuz it is a p3/800 and unfortunately its a critical machine for the client. has all his roofing business on it so dont think they can afford to be without the machine until a board and cpu are ordered. i have a p4/1.8 that i just rebuilt and upgraded that might be of interest to them.

i will try removing the video drivers and reinstalling them using the board cd and then see what xp does. will also try new memory but my diags on the hardware using pc certify pro says all is okay.

i removed the cnr modem and left it for 3 hours and when i came back the machine was still functioning. a little strange but maybe a possibility.

thanks for info. i will post back if i find the answer.

 

okay maybe a little more here. was doing trendmicro on line scan and during the scan all processing just stopped and the monitor went dead. i have no activity lights and the keyboard is locked up.

does this sound more like the board or cpu ???

 

more to add. have been running dos based diags on the memory for a couple hours now and no wacked out display also ran norton 2005 virus detection from the cd at boot no virus's found plus again display okay. so it doesnt appear to be an overheating problem, or a h.d. problem but looking more to me as a xp software problem.

anyone agree or disagree ???

will install a new h.d. with just basic xp on it and see if problem reoccurs.

 

If the data is critical on the HDD and time is important, you can just add the HDD to the computer you refurbished and they'd be in business. I think that's the course I'd recommend for a business machine.

I believe that working with the old mobo is less than ideal. They'll still have a relatively slow machine. It's impossible to tell how long this machine will be tied up or whether we'll be able to satifactorily fix it and even if fixed, an older box may be headed for more trouble.

 

yep, i do agree. for shits and grins i just installed a 40g w.d. new and so far it is responding nicely no display problems other than it still didnt like the 128mb pci card for some reason but aint going to worry about that right now. will leave system on over night and see if still stable in the a.m. if it is then i will go get them a 120g w.d. thats on sale at officemax. this will give the the storage they had with 2 physical drives with just 1. to me there was no logical reason why their son-in-law installed a 30g drive and partitioned it makes no sense plus why is there a dos 6 folder on the main drive. again makes no sense. hes suppose to be a computer geek to according to the mother in law. i have to question his knowledge after seeing this system.

am not going to re-use the old 80g drive just because it does have sensitive data and its spread all over the place. so am going to keep that drive intact just in case i forgot something in my backing up the drive to my xternal drive. besides for 50.00 for the 120g i think its a good investment and cheap.

as far as the old mobo is concerned i agree but not sure if theyd like the idea of spending some hundreds on a new machine. not quite yet will let them know a new system is something they should think about and keep this one as a backup. to me its always a good idea to have a backup machine in any business just in case.

thanks for you help.

 

we won't take any credit - you did all the work and the thinking. Good luck.

 

thank you. have seen a lot of problems occuring from corrupt xp software but this is the first time I've seen the display go nuts like this without it being the monitor or graphics card. guess its a learning thing everything day even after 20 years of this stuff.

can always depend on this forum to get the assistance one needs.

 

I cant believe it all night long the machine was stable. This morning I installed a new w.d. drive loaded everything up and was updating norton antivirus and boom the display goes into the vertical stripping again. So its not the hard drive or the software on the h.d. This one has me confused. Only thing I havent replaced is the psu so guess I will try that now. Cant believe this. Thought it was stable being it lasted all night long. Its not overheating cuz I have the window open and its blowing very cool air on the system and nothing feels warm at all.

So I guess I'm looking at either still the on-board video being damaged or the board and cpu. Client did tell me that they have had the side panel off and the machine has been sitting right above the heat vent so I guess its possible that this is an overheating problem but sporatic.

I'm lost.

 

not the psu. but a brand new 350w and within 5 minutes it did the same thing.

think its time the client think about a new system.

 

I wonder if it is happening when the machine is going into screen saver mode, i have seen strange things happen with certain screen savers and certain video chipsets. The PC will go into screen saver even if you are downloading from the net, as it only monitors mouse and keyboard usage. Only an idea, your problem looks to me like one i would have to be in front of to cure.

Also a tip about something you mentioned in your last post about having cool air blowing on it from an open Window. It is not advisable to have PCs in the air current directly from an open window or doorway due to dust intake. PCs are like a vacumm cleaner and s u c k dust in when running. Being near an open window will increase dust in the system a great deal, and dust in you machine can cause many other problems like overheating. Even fans are not a good idea outside the case for cooling as they blow dust in. All cooling should be inside the case. An air conditioner in the room is good at cooling externally though, as it usually has dust filters and is probably not blowing directly into the PC or as strongly as a fan..

 

i understand about not having the panels open because of dust, etc but was a question of overheating and this way there was no way it was overheating.

not a screensaver. i disabled before starting to work on machine. appears that if machine is idle then it most likely wont happen but as soon as you start doing something bam. wont even allow me to put a different pci graphics card in it keeps rebooting after install needs to boot. only way to get back in was by last known good configuration. like i said every part inside the machine has been replaced with new parts except the p3 board and the 800mhz cpu. even new h.d. with new install of xp and it still does it. only thing left has to be the board and or cpu.

 

I agree that the problem is the mobo, probably the vlsi chipset. You know what to do.

 

Yep, Sparrow

It has to be the board and or cpu nothing left to replace with new.

I sold them a new Dell 4700 with a 17" flat screen for 800.00 including the 100.00 mail in rebate. **** good deal if you ask me. Its a P4/3.0 800fsb with HT 512mb ram the new video technology for this machine which according to Dells web site should give them upto 128mb of video memory, dvd+rw dual format drive the whole bit plus the flat screen. They should love this machine.

Thanks all.