Quick Question about a pc problem im working on for someone

DJMK4 · 10 Jun 2009 at 20:09

Basically they gave me the pc (in dire condition!!!!) first glances is display issues which was due to a faulty gfx card which I have replaced.

Im not sure if this is a hardware or software issue so i dont know where to post. I gave the machine a healthcheck and found loadsssssssss on there, cleaned it all

I can boot into windows XP fine. doesnt seem to be an issue when generally using the machine etc but if i try to restart the machine, it will start the process, get past windows xp screen then the screen will go black and i would lose my display signal (all fans are still running, everything "sounds" normal) just no display????

Any ideas what this issue could be?

siumatfung · 10 Jun 2009 at 20:11

could be masacred OS erm try a fresh install but albeit RAM PSU and cleaning the dust out would be a start

mollymoo · 10 Jun 2009 at 20:41

DJMK4 said:
I gave the machine a healthcheck and found loadsssssssss on there, cleaned it all

noob question whats a health check and how did you do it and what did you find loads of ?

Doctor_Zhivago · 10 Jun 2009 at 20:53

mollymoo said:
noob question whats a health check

What you are charged £100 for

(virus scan)

J.B · 10 Jun 2009 at 21:06

Sounds like a driver issue, boot in to safe mode and install the latest driver.

DJMK4 · 10 Jun 2009 at 21:20

I wish i charged more for the bloody thing, this is first time iv advertised as a business on the side (day job network/voice engineer). They dumped 3 pc's on me which looked (cosmetically) like they had been tied to the back of a car and driven down the road.

I was like......(thanks for the xxx hours im going to be putting into this pile of ****)

Done the usual healthcheck

CCleaner
Spyware
Adaware
Virus updates (oh yea.....it didnt have any anti virus on there!!!!!) cleaned it up tho with AVG

Disk cleanup, disk defrag, malware remover. uninstalled any toolbars etc

J.B - Driver issue - Display driver issue you think? ill have a look on ATI's website as i think the drivers maybe slightly outdated.

Audigex · 10 Jun 2009 at 21:46

I think display driver sounds possible, but why the hell it would start playing up after running okay is anyone's guess.

Easiest way may well just be a backup of data, re-install of the OS and put the data back on. Take it to pieces and clean the inside too, just in case it's the GPU overheating.

The only way to truly discount software problems is to reformat.

DJMK4 · 11 Jun 2009 at 13:14

I want to try and avoid re-installing the OS if possible as the user has so many installed games and a good few apps which they no longer have disks for. Im going to go down the driver route and maybe removing everything from the case and starting again.

I cant see it being the GPU overheating, its a brand new gfx card! I did install the drivers on the cd tho rather than looking for updated ones on the interw3b so im going to give that a go aswel.

Any other suggestions welcome, you will be in my good books forever if you help me get rid of these horrid pc's from my bedroom, haha