video card issue [i think?] ... help!
Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 6:54 am
First off, I have a Dell [dont want to hear it] I bought in August 2003. The gfx card is an NVidia GeForce Ti4600, which I use to run dual monitors, also with the support of UltraMon for the little details.
I was watching a movie or something last week, minding my own business, when my computer froze and wouldn't respond even to Ctrl-Alt-Del. I assume it may be helpful to mention that I had both monitors on. So after giving it a minute to unfuck itself -- which it did not do -- I physically powered it off. And ever since then, it has been fucked.
When I turn the comp on, the screen fills with white dots about the size of a lowercase 'o'. Thereafter, all the graphics are messed up, and frequently instead of a login screen I just get random bars of messed up colours. If it does work normally thus far, once I log in, I usually have about 4 minutes before the monitor just turns itself off [the light turns yellow as if the CPU had been turned off]. That's if I only run one monitor. If I run two, the same thing happens except when the first monitor switches off, the secondary one switches on, and it either is just flat black [but the light is green so I know it's "active"] or has all the messed up bars of colours.
Also, when the monitor does work normally at first, if I go to the display menu on the desktop before it messes up, it doesn't give me the normal second-monitor options. So there's some kind of problem with the recognition of the monitors, but it is happening in the CPU somewhere, not the monitors -- I've interchanged them and the same thing happens with any monitor.
The only way I can get my computer to work is in safe mode. And when I run it in safe mode, the mouse leaves a permanent trail behind it on the screen, and the whole screen has yellow bars running up and down [see pic below] which get far worse if I try to drag a window around or if I scroll up or down in a window.
That's pretty much it for how fucked up everything is. Now how about some suggestions? Should I just plug in a different video card and see if it works, or is there something I can actually do to see what the problem is with it right now? Anything you can tell me would be helpful. If I left out any important details, just post and I'll add anything I can. Thanks in advance ...
I was watching a movie or something last week, minding my own business, when my computer froze and wouldn't respond even to Ctrl-Alt-Del. I assume it may be helpful to mention that I had both monitors on. So after giving it a minute to unfuck itself -- which it did not do -- I physically powered it off. And ever since then, it has been fucked.
When I turn the comp on, the screen fills with white dots about the size of a lowercase 'o'. Thereafter, all the graphics are messed up, and frequently instead of a login screen I just get random bars of messed up colours. If it does work normally thus far, once I log in, I usually have about 4 minutes before the monitor just turns itself off [the light turns yellow as if the CPU had been turned off]. That's if I only run one monitor. If I run two, the same thing happens except when the first monitor switches off, the secondary one switches on, and it either is just flat black [but the light is green so I know it's "active"] or has all the messed up bars of colours.
Also, when the monitor does work normally at first, if I go to the display menu on the desktop before it messes up, it doesn't give me the normal second-monitor options. So there's some kind of problem with the recognition of the monitors, but it is happening in the CPU somewhere, not the monitors -- I've interchanged them and the same thing happens with any monitor.
The only way I can get my computer to work is in safe mode. And when I run it in safe mode, the mouse leaves a permanent trail behind it on the screen, and the whole screen has yellow bars running up and down [see pic below] which get far worse if I try to drag a window around or if I scroll up or down in a window.
That's pretty much it for how fucked up everything is. Now how about some suggestions? Should I just plug in a different video card and see if it works, or is there something I can actually do to see what the problem is with it right now? Anything you can tell me would be helpful. If I left out any important details, just post and I'll add anything I can. Thanks in advance ...
