Display or Graphics card problem???

[Sentry74]

Hey guys,

I have a tough one here. I have a good background in pc troubleshooting, but am stumped over a solution to this problem.

A couple of days ago I linked up a KVM switch with my home pc and another I was cleaning up for a friend. I have worked with KVMs for a while now, so I know everything was hooked up correctly. As soon as I haad everything linked up, I powered on and immediately got error messages saying something along the lines of "Unable to display image with current settings". The older(friends) pc I noticed had a lower display resolution selected than my monitor (Dell LCD) could apparently handle (something below 800x600). Shortly after I began getting a similar display error on my pc. After trying to fix the display settings with little improvement, I decided to end the KVM nightmare altogether in order to make sure my pc was still ok.

I disconnected the KVM equipment, rebooted my pc, and found that at startup it was almost as though my video card (PNY nVidia GeForce4 Ti 4600) drivers were either not loading or were uninstalled. The black/white initial startup screens had vertical elongated dots up and down the screen over the whole screen about an inch or so apart. The Windows loading screens colors were skewed/discolored as windows attempted to load.

The screen would then go black, as it briefly does when it transitions to the login screen. But then instead of the next screen coming up, the screen stayed black and after a couple seconds my monitor would go to standby(amber light instead of green).

The only way I could then get into windows was thru safe mode. Once in, the display looked worse then it typically would with strange yellow and blue shadows around the icons. I then updated the video card driver/DirectX with the same result. I was basically down to uninstalling the driver and that enabled me to boot normally into windows.

After many attempts at newer/different video drivers, unseating-cleaning-reseating the video card, checking all connections, and normal/safe-mode virus and spybot scans I am all but out of options. All attempts to install a new/different driver result in windows not booting in normal mode. As I write this I see some of the letters I have typed are blue, while others have a yellow, smudged shadow effect on or near them, lol! Also, when I move my mouse around, it leaves yellow tracers on the screen that form vertical yellow lines about a half inch apart. These would cover the whole screen if I "scribbled" with my mouse over the entire screen. (sounds crazy, i know) These will vanish if i switch between windows.

Anyway, through this entire process I am getting closer to buying a new video card, because I can't take the abuse anymore.   I apologize for the lengthy description of the problem, but it's kinda tough to explain without seeing it first hand.

Thanks all in advance!! This post is my last option... :-/

[Tinygnome]

i have seen this before actually

was this a home built computer or did you buy it

if so what is the make and model and then what is the CPU make and model

[Sentry74]

It is a home-built Intel P4 1.8GHz with 512MB which was built at least 4 years ago with the same PNY GeForce4 Ti 4600 card. This is the first time I have had a problem with it...

[Tinygnome]

hrm ok a few options

1.  if you still have your friends comp put your graphics card in there (if possible) see if it still does it
if it does teh card is bad adn there is littel to nothing i can do sorry
2. Did your mobo have onbaord graphics try that if it does and its the same problem the CPU is bad


the problem i ran into was just like this aside from the yellow cursor thing and it was a bad CPU we had to replace

hope this helps

[linuxlover]

sounds almost like RAM issues...

[Tinygnome]

i guess anything is possible but i am really doubting its ram because

if ram goes bad it usually just BSOD not graphic errors but who knows stranger things have happened

[Sentry74]

Well, turned out I didn't have an old video card around to see if that truly was the problem.  So, I dropped some spare credit at Newegg (cuz they freakin rock!) on a cheap replacement (actually quite a bit of an upgrade too! -  BIOSTAR GeForce 6800XT 512MB 256-bit GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X) in order to try to keep this relic going before I commit to a PCI-E system. I am now crossing my fingers in hopes this solves the problem...

Kinda funny, after I placed the order, realized I maybe shoulda tried a fresh xp install in the event something may have gotten corrupted in the OS files???

Anyway, let me know if ya think this new vid card is a worthy replacement, good brand?

Thanks again, everyone, for your input and possible solutions to this problem! I will post my results after I install the new card.  

[Tinygnome]

This card can be AMAZING or really bad it depends on what your doing with it

For jsut basic internet, ms word, some tetris and email and stuff thsi card is way more than you even need

For gaming its a little under par it will play some games on lower to medium qualtiy withougt lag but again it depends on the point of the card

Try buying an exteranl hardrive (or jsut back up your data)
and then do a re-format and re-install this will spead the computer up to i reccomend doing this like once a year or every two years anyways

hope that helped