OBIO
November 1st, 2009, 18:56
Earlier this evening, my sister-in-law called and told me that her monitor was acting odd and that the display was very wavy...almost looked like rippling water. So, I goes over, I looks at the monitor...and it sure does look like rippling water. I ask her when the last time she had updated her video drivers..and she looked at me like a cow looking at a UFO....totally no clue. So, I download the updated driver for the onboard video chipset Radeon Xpress 200). Install it. Same thing. I run dxdiag and all looks good there. I rebooted the system and went into the bios and it was set to use the PCI-Express port (no card there to be used) instead of the onboard. I set it to use the onboard. A bit better but still wavy. Hooked the monitor to my nephews computer....and the monitor was not wavy.
Honestly, the system is in need of a total tear down and rebuild. Needs more RAM and a dedicaded video card. But I am hesitant to have her shell out money on a system that could be facing a mother board death.
What do you techies think I should advice her to do? A cheapo PCI-Express video card on Newegg will set her back $35...but then comes the whole power supply issue...the stock powersupply is only 180 watts.....duh...it could be her PSU throwing some odd voltages....hadn't thought of that.
She wants to get a lap top "eventually"...is "eventually" coming sooner than later for her as her HP desk top is looking at taking the long dirt nap?
If she goes laptop...what ones are worth getting that aren't mega bucks? She does a lot of photo stuff, e-mail stuff, videos, and plays Delta Force Xtreme online...so she needs a lap top with the guts to play DFX smoothly.
OBIO
Honestly, the system is in need of a total tear down and rebuild. Needs more RAM and a dedicaded video card. But I am hesitant to have her shell out money on a system that could be facing a mother board death.
What do you techies think I should advice her to do? A cheapo PCI-Express video card on Newegg will set her back $35...but then comes the whole power supply issue...the stock powersupply is only 180 watts.....duh...it could be her PSU throwing some odd voltages....hadn't thought of that.
She wants to get a lap top "eventually"...is "eventually" coming sooner than later for her as her HP desk top is looking at taking the long dirt nap?
If she goes laptop...what ones are worth getting that aren't mega bucks? She does a lot of photo stuff, e-mail stuff, videos, and plays Delta Force Xtreme online...so she needs a lap top with the guts to play DFX smoothly.
OBIO