Video card is broken?

[whitescar911]

Hi, ok i was playing guild wars one morning when my game frooze and my computer crashed restarted gave me a blue screen for like half a second then restarted again. I could only get into windows via safe mode. I tryed wiping the hard drive and rsinstalling window like 5 times but all i get is a 640 x 480 res . I then tryed reintalling the video cards drivers from the disk which normally solves this problem, but then i get the whole restarting + blue screen thing all over again. I tryed taking out the video card(GF 6200) and putting the one that came with the computer(ATI radeon 9250SE) and all i get is a blank screen so i had to put the 6200 back in again.

 

I also went to device manager and my 6200 doesn't even show up all i have is "other devices" and under that controller VGA compatible, which i might add everytime i load windows desktop i need new new hardware notice coming up with something about this VGA thing.

 

BTW this computer is like 4 years old and so is the 6200, using it because my laptop is being fixed, so maybe it's just an age thing. Hope you guys can help, thanks

 

Manufacture TriGem Computer NETHERLANDS

Model Patriot MC2981

CPU pentium 4 processer

Memory 512MB DDR

Hard drive 80GB

XP

Video card GT6200 card atm did have a ATI radeon 9250SE

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Please do not link to other forums in your post with regard to your problem Whitescar.

[whitescar911]

what link? didn't know there was one sorry.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

There were 3 links relating to another forum where you have posted this exact same question.

 

You seem to have received only one answer at that location.

 

Please bear with us and we will endeavour to help you.

 

Welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help by the way Whitescar. :)

[Dalo Harkin]

Hi, ok i was playing guild wars one morning when my game frooze and my computer crashed restarted gave me a blue screen for like half a second then restarted again. I could only get into windows via safe mode. I tryed wiping the hard drive and rsinstalling window like 5 times but all i get is a 640 x 480 res . I then tryed reintalling the video cards drivers from the disk which normally solves this problem, but then i get the whole restarting + blue screen thing all over again. I tryed taking out the video card(GF 6200) and putting the one that came with the computer(ATI radeon 9250SE) and all i get is a blank screen so i had to put the 6200 back in again.

 

I also went to device manager and my 6200 doesn't even show up all i have is "other devices" and under that controller VGA compatible, which i might add everytime i load windows desktop i need new new hardware notice coming up with something about this VGA thing.

 

BTW this computer is like 4 years old and so is the 6200, using it because my laptop is being fixed, so maybe it's just an age thing. Hope you guys can help, thanks

 

Manufacture TriGem Computer NETHERLANDS

Model Patriot MC2981

CPU pentium 4 processer

Memory 512MB DDR

Hard drive 80GB

XP

Video card GT6200 card atm did have a ATI radeon 9250SE

 

When you say that you installed the driver from the disk - you ALWAYS need to get the latest drivers from the manufacturer and in your case NVIDIA, visit their website and download the latest driver and install that.

[whitescar911]

I tryed to installed a driver from invidia which i thought was the latest driver

 

GeForce Release 178

 

But when i installed this my screen kept going blank then it was fine then blank then fine and it kept doing this non-stop, so i had to wipe the drive again.

[Dalo Harkin]

Right - you do not need to wipe the drive everytime a driver does not work - you just need to uninstall that driver and then carry on -

Right if you start by going to add/remove programs and remove the graphics card driver then go to C:/ there will be a folder called Nvidia click into that folder and DELETE any files that are in there.

Then restart and then install this GeForce Release 178

 

And it should work

[whitescar911]

Ok i did what u said but there wasn't any invidia drivers or folders only ATI so i removed the driver and the ATI folders and restarted the PC. I then downloaded and install the driver you said too and restarted the PC when it asked me too it happened again the screen keeps going blank then ok then blank and when it eventually get to the windows desktop its even worse and it still keep going back and forth between that and going black.

[Dalo Harkin]

Ok i did what u said but there wasn't any invidia drivers or folders only ATI so i removed the driver and the ATI folders and restarted the PC. I then downloaded and install the driver you said too and restarted the PC when it asked me too it happened again the screen keeps going blank then ok then blank and when it eventually get to the windows desktop its even worse and it still keep going back and forth between that and going black.

 

 

Right

The 6200 is an NVIDIA card GeForce Release 178

The ATI radeon 9250SE is an ATI card Catalyst™ 6.11 Display Driver for Windows XP Professional/Home Edition

 

You need to try both BUT if you are trying the different cards you need to remove the other driver and install the ones listed above.

Any questions please ask

[whitescar911]

So how do i install these if my screen keeps going blank. Also what do u mean using different cards im only using the 6200 so why would i need the ATI driver and why is it doing this now after 4 years. In the past even when i wiped the hard drive all i did was installed the driver from the CD and it was running 100% fine so why not now?

[Dalo Harkin]

So how do i install these if my screen keeps going blank. Also what do u mean using different cards im only using the 6200 so why would i need the ATI driver and why is it doing this now after 4 years. In the past even when i wiped the hard drive all i did was installed the driver from the CD and it was running 100% fine so why not now?

 

You mentioned an ATI card and an NVIDIA card - are you now just using the 6200 (Nvidia) and you have installed the latest drivers and followed the advice on removing the older ones?

if there is still a blank screen the the Monitor or the GPU is faulty

[whitescar911]

Well i removed the ATI folders because they wasn't any invidia ones and i also went to control panel and removed the ATI drivers and anything else ATI, but i still got a ATI message when i got to the desktop. Im only using the 6200 card and yes im still getting the blank screen. I connected my moniter too my laptop and the moniter is 100% fine so i think the card has had it so im going to get another card and try that, nothing expenvise just to see if that will work.

[whitescar911]

This maybe shouldn't go here but i just need to ask is a ATI radean 9800xt better then a invida 6200GT? because i dunno what to replace the the old card with or just put in another 6200 as cards like those are so much cheaper now then when i got the card so maybe i could get a better one.

[Dalo Harkin]

To be honest those cards are old and budget so it really doesnt make any difference which one you choose - if the 6200 was fine for your needs until it stopped working then as you say get another one of those