Jeff's Friend

A new problem has arisen with my computer and I was wondering if anyone might be able to help me figure out if the problem is the video card as I suspect it is. I'm trying to avoid a situation where I buy a new vid card and it doesn't fix the problem.

Anyhow, the problem only occurs when I play video and at very very low resolutions like the bios introduction screen when you first start your computer. The problem also occurs at the low-res Windows splash screen when you are starting up windows. During the low-res intros, random vertical green lines show up on the screen; only three or four, so it's not that bad. At times, there is a lot of "snow"; errors in pixel drawing is the best way to describe it.

When the high-res windows desktop show up, no problem whatsoever. Until I go to play a video in windows media player. the video only displays every other vertical line. The media player skin and the background desktop are totally unaffected.

No other applications are affected.

Occasionally, quicktime movies are unaffected, but if i play them for a while, then they too become affected. It's not a virus; i have scanned my machine with a fully subscribed up-to-date Norton anti-virus.

So is this a hardware problem with my vid card? Or is this a software problem? Will replacing my video card cure this problem?

My system configuration is as follows:

P3-800 MHz
512 MB RAM
ASUS v7700 Pure (GeForce 2 GTS w/ 64 MB RAM)
Western Digital 120GB HD (7200 rpm)
Windows XP Pro

Thanks for any help.

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Jeff's Friend

Sorry, I forgot to add one extremely important piece of information:

When I throttle down the hardware acceleration of the video card, the problem clears up. I have to throttle it down about two-thirds of the way ; To the point where I have had to disable accelaration of DirectDraw and DirectX.

Thanks for your help.

P.S. Unfortunately, this bumps up my timetable for how long I can wait to buy a new vid card (if in fact, the vid card is the culprit here.)

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Greg Hess

Could be the video card overheating...but then you'd see it in higher res as well.

You using an LCD by any chance?

Jeff's Friend

No, not using an LCD. My moniter is a Sony Multiscan G400.

I suspect that the video card is not overheating because the abnormality only happens to the video. If the video is playing in a window, then only the video is affected and the surrounding desktop, background, window frame, other windows, etc. are completely unaffected.

Thanks for your speedy response, Mr. Hess.

BTW, can you recommend any sites that review hardware for consumers (for example: "We rounded up the latest GeForce FX 5600 Ultra cards, and here's the best one....", or "We rounded up the latest motherboards from all of the manufacturers and here's how they compare...")

Thanks again.

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Ernest Burden

You have a lot of power-hungry devices. How big is the powersupply? Do you have a soundcard--if so, is it an older Soundblaster?

One of the most common causes of video problems is related to your power supply, oddly enough. At start-up the machine is spinning up that drive and you could be running out of amps. Playing video also could be topping you off.

The other issue is that the older SB sound cards can cause problems on the AGP slot, although those tend to be full BSODs.

I use a Sony G400 and it has behaved very well.

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Ernest Burden III
AcmeDigital
architectural rendering

Jeff's Friend

I have a 300 watt powersupply. And I have a SoundBlaster Live! which is from 3 years ago. I guess that's antiquated in computer terms. orangeshy

I would suspect you're on to something with your observations. However, something still puzzles me: this hardware setup has worked fine for 3 years. I haven't changed anything in the past six months, and that was a hard drive upgrade.

Thus, my question is: would these issues not arise sooner if the power supply and the sound blaster were the culprits?

Thanks for your reply.

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Ernest Burden

Greg may have a more informed response.

But it would be possible for the power supply to be aging, and not able to pump the same juice it used to. 300W is not BAD (a lot of crap retail computers have 250W) but I have always tried to use a 400W or greater. Video cards use a lot of power, and which mode they are in affects their power use.

The SB card is always suspect, but again, if it has been living peacefully so far, maybe its not.

Have you tried all the usual advice like opening the case and removing furballs and re-seating the cards and memory sticks? In an older computer the connections can degrade which could explain the intermitent nature of the problem. In fact, that sounds like a very good thing to try next.

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AcmeDigital
architectural rendering

Richard McCarthy

http://www.tomshardware.com
http://www.guru3d.com

They have good reviews of round up, and they are pretty accurate. Right now I would recommend to buy a GeForce 4 Ti4200, Ti4600 and Ti4800, depending on how much you wanna spent. Ti4200 is a good buy because it's dirt cheap right now and it runs as fast as GeForce FX5600 ULTRA (if directX 9 features are not used..and if you use it for 3D and not GAMES, chances are DX9 won't be used)
Plus Ti4200 runs as fast as Ti4600 and 4800 if you are willing to "Overclock" a little (those later 2 are really just "more overclockable" version of Ti4200, with faster RAM)

Good brand are: Albatron, Leadtek and ASUS.
Leadtek is probably my favorite, it's rock solid display as always, and very overclockable in everyway, and they price it just right.

A Word of caution, don't buy Prolink Ti4200, the card is got a display problem as it have a very fuzzy display (due to noise/signal filter not properly designed) other cheaper brand also might have problem with their graphic card fan.. which sometimes just fail and resulting in overheating of the GPU ....


But you probably have to snap one up fast... in my area, I spent 3 weeks looking for a decent GF4 Ti card, and can't find many..they are been snap up very quickly plus most manufacturer don't make them anymore (they all move to the SLOWER GF FX5200~5600 cards, replacing them basically)


-RM

[ September 08, 2003, 12:29 AM: Message edited by: Richard McCarthy ]

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Ernest Burden

First things first--determine what is causing your display problems. Get another video card to test (borrow one from a friend, or another computer you have) and see if the problem goes away instantly. If I was right about the power supply not being able to keep up, a new card will likely only make it worse.

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Ernest Burden III
AcmeDigital
architectural rendering

David Knourek

I would have to agree with Ernest, see if you can borrow a friends card to test, and like he said an inadequate power supply can cause all sorts of trouble.

-dave

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