Pc Problem

[DogKnight]

My first thought would be a bad sector in the RAM.

Before you go replacing hardware. Backup everything, format the machine, set bios to defaults and reinstall windows and drivers only. Give it a bit of a test at that stage. Also worth trying is buying a can of compressed air, take out all the parts one at a time and give it a good spray out to clean it up.

Another thing worth thecking is if there are IRQ/IO errors. If two devices have the same IRQ number then this would cause crashing when they try to load. And the comp can sometimes boot too. The mroe devices in your PC the more likely this could occur.

Thats the steps I would take. Firstly eliminate software as being at fault. Then go onto hardware.

[some_cs_student]

Sounds like faulty/overheating Graphics Card RAM. Had this happen to a couple of machines.

Swap in a new graphics card and see what happens. I'd be inclined to check your system RAM as well (Run Memtestx86), but when I read the vertical blue lines you described, they sound exactly like the symptoms of faulty GFX RAM.

I stand by my original suggestions here, although I do agree that I had the same issue with graphics card overheat. Someone broke a couple fins off the fan when they helped me clean the dust out (with an air compressor, lol).

Try the self-booting CD's I've mentioned if you have access to another PC and don't want to re-install windows.

[BRUNSKIGTST]

Just tried from scratch now....

Uninstalled everything and re-installed using supplied cd's. Got about 3/4 through the installation, it seemed to try adjust the display setting to a higher resolution and went blank.

Looks like i'll be going for the new 9800 GX2 @ approx $750!

...but its got more powaaa!!!!!!!

do you some times get a blue screen then blank???

edited.

what dogknight said i will be doing also, its not video overheat related or anything, either bad ram or motherboard fried also. from what i have read, test ur video with a friend comp to eliminate that theory

Edited April 14, 2008 by BRUNSKIGTST

[Sklyn]

Firstly I am no expert so probably way off the mark, but here goes..

I had a similar issue a while back, where the screen would go black at random times. sometimes I would start up and get nothing though I could hear the PC work fine. it gradually got worse. Sometimes i just force shutdown and restart and was ok, other times I had to leave it off for a few hours. In the end I found out some of the capacitors on the mother board were fried! New MB and fresh install == all good.

[ocean]

My gut feelings would be

1. Fried video card

2. Fried motherboard

3. Fried ram

4. Dodgy power supply. What brand/model are you running?

[markk]

RAM, graphics card, or bad sectors on HDD

You might want to try a checkdisk using the windows recovery console

chkdsk /r

Use the Microsoft memory checker to check for fauly RAM http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

[archie01]

Firstly I am no expert so probably way off the mark, but here goes..

I had a similar issue a while back, where the screen would go black at random times. sometimes I would start up and get nothing though I could hear the PC work fine. it gradually got worse. Sometimes i just force shutdown and restart and was ok, other times I had to leave it off for a few hours. In the end I found out some of the capacitors on the mother board were fried! New MB and fresh install == all good.

^^what he said

Have you checked your capacitors?

I had similar symptoms and needed to replace around 15 capacitors.

A fine tip soldering iron and $50 bux later, it's all good.

[GTR_STEALTH]

I've un-installed the video card drivers and left it like that to rule out problems with the motherboard, RAM, or HDD. Its been going alrite and has not displayed any of my previous symptoms.

Its definately looking like a stuffed video card.....