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OT: Death of a video card?

The other morning my home computer started up in 4-bit color at something like 640x480 resolution, looked bad to say the least. Rebooting made it worse, after a normal looking WinXP startup screen it began 'pixelating', for lack of a better term, fading off to nothing-ness on the screen, had to use the power button.

On another reboot I made it to the desktop somewhat normally, things were still a bit 'pixelated' but I could see things and they functioned, but there were large randomly colored blocks covering the screen, evenly spaced, like desktop icons, but I could tell they weren't on top of icons.

I opened the box and jiggled the parts inside, rebooted, and things worked a little better. I haven't had time to do much more, if I get time I plan to pull the video card (Ti4400) and re-seat it, I don't know what else to do.

I guess this is a long winded way of asking-

Do video cards slowly crap out or do they usually just go >FIZZT< and they're gone?

Many thanks!

Reply to
hayduke
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They can go either way, I'm guessing. Heat, especially cycling heat, is hard on circuit boards. I just lost my favorite Viewsonic monitor to this. After 5 years, the circuit board had developed enough mechanical defects that it just wouldn't start anymore.

Is the image on your monitor stable other than the artifacts? Have you tried reinstalling drivers, etc.? Do you have an old video card laying around that you can pop in there to test with?

Reply to
Dale Dunn

Sometimes it's stable, sometimes not. If not, a reboot has corrected it, though I've only done this about 4 times since jiggling the bits inside.

It was weird, I was reading my mail in NS4.7x and the black and white pixels forming the text on the screen just started "shifting about" in a moment there was nothing but grey-white inside the NS app window, it was minimized a bit so I could see the desktop and a session of IE with Google open. When the NS page became unreadable I clicked over to the IE, google, 'window' and it looked fine- weird.

I suspected a virus, but ran stinger.exe from norton, it found nothing.

I haven't tried a new driver yet, but I was checking the prices of quadro4's on ebay thin morning :o)

Thanks!

Whit

Dale Dunn wrote:

Reply to
hayduke

Hmmm. The Ti4400... Is that fan cooled? Is the fan working ok?

Reply to
Dale Dunn

I dunno. Are they dirty?

Reply to
Dale Dunn

Yep, box has about 6 fans also, all seemed to be working fine.

This machine is set near to a large window (no direct sun) in a house built in 1952, so it probably gets a little more 'environmental exposure' than a typical office based machine, and the humidity has been a little higher recently. We also have 3 cats...

Can I use a soft pencil eraser to clean the c>

Reply to
hayduke

I dunno, probably not :o)

Just that the jiggling helped, made wonder...

On the plus side my new Xi AMD FX51 hot rod arrived today at work, just waiting for our IT guy 8o)

Thanks for the replies!

Whit

Dale Dunn wrote:

Reply to
hayduke

You can do that -- then use isopropyl to remove eraser residue. I have doubts that the problem is in the OS or in the video driver, however. Sounds to me like a hardware problem, and very, very likely to be in the card itself. If there is any way to obtain an identical card and place it in the system that should speak volumes about what's going on.

'Sporky'

Reply to
Sporkman

Thanks, that's reassuring. I'm kind of hoping to find a damp cat hair laying across two contacts on the video board. I'll see if a neighbor may have another video card, lots of geeks in Austin. :o)

Oooo, and the new Xi is *danged* fancy! I haven't got it fired up yet but I'm breathing a little heavy

Sporkman wrote:

Reply to
hayduke

"> laying across two contacts on the video board. I'll see if a neighbor

Georgetown too!

Where ya from, and have you heard about CTSUG?

Richard Doyle

Reply to
Richard Doyle

I'm out here in South Austin, across the river, I work at Delstar Technologies Inc, doing machine design, et al.

delstarinc.com

Yes I have heard of CTSUG, but thanks for the reminder, I've put it on my calander!

Whit

Richard Doyle wrote:

Reply to
hayduke

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