Dead graphics card?

SpaghettiOs · 31 May 2009 at 15:11

Hi all,

Over the last couple of days I've been experiencing graphical glitches/artifacts. While playing games and just using Firefox I kept getting diagonal blue lines across the screen before the computer locked up forcing me to restart. I also had instances where the screens colours would invert.

Today the same just happened again, except this time the computer has rebooted to 4bit colours and 640x480 resolution. The graphics card has an error in device manager saying it was unable to start and the graphics adapter cannot be found in display properties.

It was probably due an upgrade anyway, but do you guys reckon its dead?

Cheers,
James

matt1 · 31 May 2009 at 15:32

Any idea on temperatures?

It sounds like something hardware-wise is damaged. But i may be worth a shot downloading the latest video drivers, uninstalling old ones, reboot and install new ones.

SpaghettiOs · 31 May 2009 at 15:36

Yeh, my initial thought was temperatures. Checked a few times and they seemed to be high 60s/mid to low 70s which I'm fairly sure is normal for those cards. I wondered if it could be due to the hot weather, but all the other temps in my computer seemed fine.

I'll give the drivers a try. I had already updated them earlier today in the hope of solving the initial problem.

SpaghettiOs · 31 May 2009 at 22:20

Sorry for the double post. Anyone think this could be a RAM related issue?

Just removed one of my RAM sticks and the machine worked for about 4 minutes before the original problem recurring. Now neither of the RAM sticks will make the machine work correctly. The same graphics card not being recognized problem is occuring. This is sounding more and more worryingly like a motherboard problem.

I will try some other sticks tomorrow but until then does anyone have any ideas?