Random Video problem...

[Rhor]

Hi.

I'm having problems with some component on my system.

Since a few weeks ago, I used to be working on the PC, when out of nothing, the video would go off, including the sound, for 2 sconds and then it would came back as normal, just a black screen and then normal again.

Since yesterday, the PC was working as normal, then it rebooted itself, but when the BIOS came in, the video was all "damaged", just when you try to open a corrupted image file and you all sorts of misplaced pixels and artifacts all over the screen, so right now I can barely see what I'm writing.

What I've tried so far is following:

- I changed the monitor

- Changed the RAM

- Disconnected everything but the vital hardware

- I took out everything and put it back on every connector, video card, ram, power connectors, etc...

- Testing on a open case to discard heat problems

- I tried with different connectors to see if one of them is faulty

I know its not a driver problem because this artifacts are shown since I power up the system.

Sometimes I power up the pc and everything is normal, but are just a very few times.

Sometimes I power up, and the initial BIOS screen is normal, but when Windows is booting, the artifacts comes back.

I believed it was a RAM problem because I switched sticks and it worked, and after a few reboots, the artifacts came back again.

Maybe its the power supply, I got it 2 years ago.

I'm goin to try with a different video card, a PCI express version (my motherboard supports AGP and PCI-E cards, and DDR I and II, not at the same time tho).

My system specs:

- Intel C2D E4xxx, no overcloking

- Kingston 2 gigs, DDRII 800 at 667

- ATI Radeon All In Wonder 9800 PRO AGP

- ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA motherboard

- Western Digital SATA HDD 500 giggs

- Antec Smart Power 400W

Thank you for any ideas anyone can give me. I'm rapidly losing hope.

EDIT: I already switched video cards and it worked perfectly. The bad thing is that its not my video card, so I cannot keep it, and even if I do for some time, it's a very low end model, an ATI X300, and coming from an All In Wonder 9800 PRO, its a big loss in performance.

Anyway, have peace AIW, I shall miss you.

Edited July 26, 2008 by Rhor

[jcarle]

The errors you mentioned were indicative of bad video memory. Glad you got the issue resolved.

[Rhor]

The errors you mentioned were indicative of bad video memory. Glad you got the issue resolved.

Thank you.

If the video memory is faulty, then there's nothing I can do about it to fix it I guess? (I really loved that video card)

[jcarle]

The errors you mentioned were indicative of bad video memory. Glad you got the issue resolved.

Thank you.

If the video memory is faulty, then there's nothing I can do about it to fix it I guess? (I really loved that video card)

If indeed that's the cause, then short of soldering on new memory chips, unfortunately no.

[RJARRRPCGP]

That sounds like a used Radeon 9800 Pro I gotten in April, 2007.

It would sometimes look fine and most of the time, far from fine, the majority of the time, even the BIOS screen was corrupted!

It seems that reseating it solves it, but always comes back! Thus, it's looking like a possible common problem with Radeon 9800 Pros. Sorry.

It may be a PCB issue! Because reseating it can temporarily solve it!

But, don't even expect it to even go 1 hour before going back to video corruption.

My Radeon 9800 Pro suddenly gave video corruption when all I was running was a hard disk drive utility!

Warning, an alcohol cleaning probably won't change anything!

I have a feeling that it's a common with Radeon 9800 Pros.

Thus, I ended up getting an eVGA GeForce 7600 GS and it's still fine, AFAIK.

Edited August 5, 2008 by RJARRRPCGP