Windows won't start, graphical garbage, possible bios problem
Hi,
Couple of days ago I turned on my computer to start working on an assignment and I absolutely freaked out. After the Windows loading screen the whole diplay just turned to garbage spitting glitches and distortions all over the screen. I logged in anyway and after a really extended loading period, whilst the screen was still filled with garbage, I was able to get into Windows for about 30 secs before a BSOD quickly flashed up and instantaneoulsy restarted the computer. I restarted in safe mode, did a system restore before the last windows update from a couple of weeks ago and tried again only to get the same problems. Then reinstalled the latest version of my video card (geforce 4600) but again the same problem. Ran a virus check and found copies of flashkiller in some zip archives which got me worried. I'm pretty sure the infected exe files were never run and I'm hoping it's just a coincidence though I don't if I'm that lucky.
After doing some research on it I decided to try and reflash my bios with the latest update, this was sucessful (although it didn't fix the problem) but I figured seeming I could still flash sucessfully my bios chip wasn't damaged (can somone confirm that for me?). Anyway after reading some of the posts here I found one that sounded similar where they had decided it was a damaged video card problem, of course they hadn't said how they managed to find this out, so yeah does anyone have any suggestions?
Sounds like a Video Card problem. Do you have another you can try?
If you want to try error searching try the following:
Also: look in your Event viewer: rt. click My Computer then click Manage then Event Viewer.
Or: Administrative Tools/Event Viewer or Start/Run/eventvwr
Open the system as well as the application tabs & look for X errors. Click error line for details.
Post back the source & event id especially of errors that seem to coincide with a crash.
Or:
Go to start | search (type in) .dmp
Note the location of your latest .dmp file.
Then:
1) Download and install the Debugging Tools from Microsoft
2) Download and install this debugwiz
3) Open the Wiz & Browse to, or paste in the path to, your latest .dmp file.
4) After the Wiz creates a Text document attach it back to this thread.
Yeah thanks, like u said it looks like something with the vid card. It had an error with nv4.dll you can see the print out below. Anyway so I did a complete removal of my video cards drivers and restarted, whilst it stopped the computer reseting all the time (I can now log into windows normally and no BSOD) the graphical garbage still pops up. Do you reckon it's just the vid card cause I mean it should't still be throwing graphical glitches if the card doesn't have drivers should it? And no I don't have a spare one to try out.
Ben.
You definitly want to install the latest drivers from nVidea. Do this in Safe Mode.
Make sure that the previous drivers are uninstalled both from the Device Manager & also from Add/Remove Programs.
Also you may want to update the chipset drivers (probably the VIA 4 in 1).
Use this scan to verify your motherboard model in order to verify that you indeed have a VIA chipset. Look under Main Circuit Board.
From what it sounds like since you removed the drivers and all but still getting the graphical destortions it may be your video card. I am no where new as experinced or good as Jephree but though I would lend a hand to see if I could help any.
You could get an updated drivers and reinstall them to see if that it still doing the glitches.
Hi yeah thanks again for all your help,
I uninstalled and reinstalled my vid card drivers and I think I updated my chipset driver ( the printout of the advisor was kind of confusing). It wasn't a via chipset, I'll add the board details below but I checked my mobo manual (says its a intel 850 chipset) and grabbed some software off the manufacturer (asus) website. It wasn't actually listed as a driver but it was the only thing there, an update utility, sounded like a driver though. Yeah so the result of all that was it no longer locksup or chucks BSODs when I log in normally, but I'm still getting the onscreen garbage though it does seem to be clearing up a bit over time ( that may just be my imagination though).
Ben.
The advisor stuff on the main board:
Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. REV 1.xx
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software, Inc. ASUS P4T-E ACPI BIOS Revision 1008 Beta 004 06/27/2003
I am sure as resourceful as Jephree is and how great of a help he is he can do a little googling and find more then waht I can. If it dont clear up then the wrost case scenario is its the video card and that means youll have to get a new one. But I would see if you can do anything else before buying a new one..I know how costly they can be LOL and I am sure Jephree will find something that can be of help. I wish I could be more of a help..mabye as I learn a few things in the future
Yeah both bios and vid card have the latest drivers. The only ! in the device manager is for my "scsi/raid host controller" but that's always been like that (I think cause I have nothing using it) and I can't actually check my dxdiag on display tab because I can only view it when my video card is disabled or hardware acceleration is off (it locks up when I log in and enable either of these). And yeah I have dx9.0c installed. By the way I added a screenshot of whats occuring (you probably already had a pretty good idea of what I was talking about anyway) it gets a lot worse when I first try to logon to Windows especially with the vid card enabled and hardware accel on full, it basically fills the screen with purple and green garbage hiding everything and I think it locks up too (cant see mouse so cant be sure, but pressing the power button doesnt start auto shutdown).
Newbie
