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Author Topic: Strange Unknown Issue with Boot-up and Strange Symbols  (Read 5048 times)

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Bill Bob

    Topic Starter


    Newbie

    • Experience: Beginner
    • OS: Windows XP
    Strange Unknown Issue with Boot-up and Strange Symbols
    « on: October 16, 2012, 04:47:13 PM »
    I have a strange issue with my gaming computer, and I'm not sure if its Hardware, software or virus, but I think its virus or hardware.

    the problem started when i was on a website while viewing a video, wireless was slow, and the screen began having small problems like areas with lower resolution and frame-rate drop, at first  i thought it was the monitor and turned it off and turned it back on, but that did not help, so i exited out of Google chrome which after several seconds did shut out, and then normally turned my computer off. several hours later when i tried to turn it back on, very strange symbols displayed all over the screen during boot up, until the windows XP loading sign which was normal, but then after that ended the top of the screen turned blue and if i moved my mouse, the top half of the screen would display and then go no further and after several seconds revert back to blue. so i shut it down manually by holding the power button, and then rebooted it in safety mode. safety mode did boot, but it still had no background and strange bluelines in it, as well as being slow. i immediately started my virus protection scan, but so far it has shown nothing. i have no idea what the problem could be, and any help would be appreciated.

    Symptoms:
    Boot-up problems
    Strange symbols all over screen ex. the a with ~ over it
    will not boot up except in safety mode

    the computer is a custom built gaming computer, and it is nearly 3 years old, so a piece of hardware may have burned out.
    i do not however know much about the chips inside and what version of XP it runs on

    DaveLembke



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    Re: Strange Unknown Issue with Boot-up and Strange Symbols
    « Reply #1 on: October 18, 2012, 10:23:56 AM »
    Seen Video cards fail and do this. Do you have a spare video card to try out or remove videocard to try integrated video?