2 Computers 2 Problems

[sapphy75]

Hello, I am having some serious problems with my computers. I'm not much of a hardware person so I'll try to explain everything as best as I can.

First computer:

The power supply on one computer blew and I replaced it. Now the computer still won't turn on. I can't get it to do anything. This is my brothers computer.

Abit KA7 Motherboard
AMD Athlon 800 MHZ
300 Watt PS
Windows Me
Riva TNT Graphics Blaster
Asound Sound Card
384 MB Memory
40 Gig Maxtor
HP 10x burner
48x cdrom
Network Card

Second Computer:

This is the main computer. My screen keeps whiting out and when I move the mouse around, the color and words come back. The taskbar is shaded out. I can hardly get anything done for the screen going on and off. Also, sometimes it'll freeze for a few seconds, and then everything will turn big (all the words and icons). A message comes up saying that a device error caused the computer to malfunction. I think it's my video card but I'm not sure.

Abit KT7A-Raid Motherboard
1 Gig Athlon
400 Watt Power Supply
40, and 80 gig hard drives
2 Liteon 48x burners
16x DVD Player
Abit Siluro Graphics Card (I think AGP)
Sound Blaster Sound Card
Network Card
512 MB Memory
Windows XP Home Edition

I can't get in touch with the person who usually fixes my computer. If I have an idea what's wrong, I may can find someone to help me fix it.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

sapphy

No 1 sounds like a hardware issue, maybe something else belw up when the power supply did. BTW, how do you know the power supply was the problem before? Maybe the power supply was OK, and something else has blown up?

No 2 sounds like a driver issue for the video card. I assume it's an Nvidia card. What driver version have you loaded for it?

More helpful folk will be along, just have your answers to my questions at the ready.

Cheers
Mick

[sapphy75]

Thanks for replying.

The reason I thought it was the power supply is because sparks was coming from it and it smelled like fire when I took it out. My brother smelled something funny and that was the only thing it seemed to be. The person who built the computer did look at it and told me it was the power supply. It was a couple weeks before I could buy another one and he moved to Florida last week.

I am using the Nvidia card. It's driver # 2.1.8.3.

Thanks again,

sapphy

[muno]

If something else blew up, it's probably the motherboard. (I blew my computer once by excessive overclocking )

mw seems right about the #2, xp comes with dx8.1, those drivers look horribly outdated for that os. Isn't nvidia going somewhere like 46.xx now?
-M

[sapphy75]

I actually went to the abit site, I'll go to nvidia and see what's there. This is all so new to me. I've installed a few cdroms and hard drives but when something else goes wrong, I'm lost. I'll update after going to nvidia.

Also, a few minutes ago I go the windows error box telling me that my Abit Siluro caused my vomputer to crash and asked if I wanted to send info to Microsoft. That message was new.

sapphy