Video display garbles after awhile

Verran · Post by **Verran** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 1:08 pm

System specs:
- Intel P4 2.8 GHZ w/ hyperthreading CPU
- ATI Radeon 9800 128 MB AGP video card
- 1 GB Corsair PC-3200 (DDR-400) RAM (CL-2)
- Soyotech P4I865PE Plus DRAGON 2 motherboard
- Maxtor SATA 7200 RPM 60 GB hard drive
- Creative Soundblaster Live sound card
- Onboard 10/100 NIC
- Antec 300W power supply
- Generic floppy drive
- Generic CD burner drive
- Windows XP Professional (SP2 + fully updated)
- Antivirus, Ad-Aware, Spybot, Regrun all installed, updated and set to run regularly.
- Latest BIOS update installed

The system has been running fine for over a year. A thunderstorm hit us out of nowhere and rebooted the machine (yes, it's on a surge protector

).

Since then, the video is fine on boot, but after a short while, the display becomes garbled and can only be fixed by rebooting.

The first thing I did, obviously, was swap out monitors, but it did the same thing. Next, I replaced the video card with the same model, but it did the same thing. Next, I investigated the drivers (uninstalled an re-installed), but it did the same thing. Next, I figured something might be wrong with Windows, but I ran a test this morning by loading up DOS with a boot disk, and the same thing happens, which makes me believe it's the hardware.

Any ideas on what should I do next? Power supply? Motherboard?

Thanks,
V

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 1:50 pm

hmmm, I wanna say run memtest, but I donno if that will help. Tho it could tell you if there is a problem with the motherboard, got a cheap old PCI video card somewhere?

Verran · Post by **Verran** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 4:16 pm

I put in a new power supply based off this:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBA ... tionID=948

I also grabbed a new motherboard, just in case.

Will post updates.

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 2:37 pm

Swapping monitors would be the absolute last thing I'd try. Why is it "obvious" to swap it first?

The specs scream "PSU" to me - so tell me - did replacing it fix the problem?

I'd remove the sound card. See what that does. All a Soundblaster Live! will do is slow you down.

Floyd · Post by **Floyd** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 3:53 pm

good chances for mobo death. had similar problems a year ago with constant memory access problems after a thunderstorm, which set the computer off due to power fluctuation.

Verran · Post by **Verran** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 6:49 pm

The monitor is really, really old. I got it for $1 at a company auction (plus 5 others, 1 has already died).

The new 350W Antec power supply seems to have fixed the issue. Thanks all.

(P.S. It's not my system, so I don't really care what's in it.)