Display Problem (Corrupted Graphics)

[tomedcollins]

My problem is one that's easier to let people see for themselves rather than describe, so please look at the attached file (note that the red dots in the top half of the screen are part of the corruption).

My computer isn't permanently like this. One time it happened the display returned to normal as soon as I switched to another window, but conversely there was an occasion it happened when I turned the computer off, left it overnight, and turned it on again to find the problem still present.

The corruption isn't only present within the Windows environment - when I reboot the machine the initial text detailing information about the graphics card is corrupted, as is the Windows startup screen.

While the display is like this, the computer runs noticably slower and freezes for a second or two roughly every half a minute.

The computer itself is a P4-2000, with a Sparkle GeForce 4 Ti46000 graphics card. The OS is Windows XP Professional.

Before this problem started the computer had run perfectly well since I bought it eight months ago. I've neither added nor removed any hardware from it since I've owned it.

To try and cure the problem I ran a virus check on the machine, which showed no viruses present. I formatted the hard drive and replaced XP Home with XP Professional, and I've removed and reinserted the graphics card. When I performed the last measure the graphics were corrupted when I turned the computer off before taking the card out but were normal again when I'd completed my task and switched it back on. Everything was fine for several days but then the problem returned.

Hope that this is enough information. Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer advice, and indeed to anyone who just takes the time to look at this post, whether or not they can help me.

[PresterJohn]

>The corruption isn't only present within the Windows environment - when I reboot the machine the initial text detailing information about the graphics card is corrupted, as is the Windows startup screen.

if you are seeing that pattern even before xp initializes, that would make me think it is not a driver issue but more likely to be the card itself. the other possibility is some sort of electrical/magnetic interference on the display (or even a problem with the monitor itself) though i have never see it take the form like the pic shows.

do you have another display you can connect to the machine to see if we can rule out a problem with the monitor itself?

also, just as a point of info, pls tell us what driver version you have installed.

[tomedcollins]

Thanks for your suggestion PresterJohn. I tried it out but, unfortunately, plugging another monitor into the computer didn't solve the problem. The corruption looks exactly the same on the different screen.

Incidentally, I don't know if this is useful information or not, but the corruption is exactly the same every time it happens. What I mean by that is the same letters corrupt in exactly the same way when I reboot, the same part of the startup screen has lines through it in exactly the same place every time, the top right of the screen always shows the red dots in the way it does on my attached file etc. etc.

As for drivers, I currently have the Detonator XP 40.72 beta drivers installed. The problem has also occurred when using the Detonator XP 30.82 drivers, which I was using before I re-formatted the hard drive and upgraded to XP Professional.

[agathodaimon]

Sounds like a bunk video card to me... not sure though.
If you have a way of swapping another video card in (i.e. a friend's) do that and see what happens.
How long has this been happening? Ever since you built it, or did it just start going weird on you one day?

[PresterJohn]

just to rule out the driver issue, d/l the latest nvdia driver candidate - v41.xx which was released ealier this month and delete the card from the device manager, reboot and install again.

the corruption you describe reminds me of an incident i saw a while back where the card conflicted with some system memory settings.

it is starting to sound like indeed a hardware problem. if you are able to borrow an identical card from a friend,etc swapping it out would provide a conclusive answer.

[tomedcollins]

PresterJohn - thanks for letting me know about the new NVidia drivers - I'll download them at the next convenient opportunity.

agathodaimon - this only started happening about a fortnight ago. I've owned the computer for about eight months and up until this problem started nothing had gone wrong that couldn't be solved reasonably easily (i.e. disk errors, nothing major).

Both of you mentioned trying out another graphics card - I should be able to do this at some point, but probably not within the next week or so (the guy I know who has plenty of spare computer parts is a hard man to pin down).

In the meantime, I've had it suggested to me that the cause of the problem might be dust or overheating, so I opened up the computer and had a look around. The fan for the graphics chip had a lot of dust in it, so I cleaned it out and the computer has been fine since I turned it back on. I'm not going to get my hopes up however as sometimes a few days pass between incidences of this problem.

[agathodaimon]

hehe, yeah, I didn't even think about the dust issue.
I know people that have had some really odd things happen with their computers that they couldn't figure out. So they decided to clean out the insides and it fixed the problem.
So, it may be that too much dust was built up in the fan, and enough air wasn't reaching the core, which in turn would make it run too hot.
Just see how it goes for a couple of days, and if it comes back, you could try the deleting & reinstalling of the drivers & if needed, testing another video card.

[PresterJohn]

let's keep our fingers, crossed

[tomedcollins]

OK, resurrection of an old thread here. To bring anyone reading this up to speed, my cleaning exercise did the trick ... for six months. Now, the problem is back with a vengeance. Doing yet another dust clean and leaving the side panel off of the case to try and give the computer better ventilation worked a treat, for all of a week or so.

Last night though the problem came back yet again, and my old hunch about the problem maybe being one of overheating was seemingly proved wrong by the fact that the system seemed quite cool when the corruption exhibited itself.

I don't think it's a question of drivers as I've upgraded several times between my original posts and now (I'm currently running Detonator 43.45 drivers).

The only other thing that comes to mind is that maybe the graphics card is too close to the modem and keeping heat close to the card, although as I've said I'm not sure that the problem is one of overheating and so to my limited knowledge this shouldn't matter anyway.

No-one I've approached with this problem has seen anything like it before, and I'm only bringing this up again in the hope that between my original posts and now someone else might have seen something like this and know what it is. To be honest, even if I can't fix the problem I'd take consolation in the mystery of exactly what's causing it to be solved.

[Bkhong]

I suggest trying a very simple solution, swap the graphic card with another friend, and let him try out the card while you try his.

I onced had a similiar problem, graphics corrupted...seeing red spots all over my monitor. Turned out that the R component of the RGB in my monitor has burned out. How about trying another monitor?

"The only other thing that comes to mind is that maybe the graphics card is too close to the modem and keeping heat close to the card, although as I've said I'm not sure that the problem is one of overheating and so to my limited knowledge this shouldn't matter anyway"

Too close to the modem, why not use another PCI slot that is farther away for the modem?

Hope you will get to the root of the problem...in case of worst case scenario...hope your warranty's still good!