Moe - Vid card issue

[Eagle]

Lately when I boot up it's been going through the POST Ok then when the card should kick on and go to the desktop it will go BSD with a "Hardware Malfuntion""System has halted" message. Reboot once or twice and all is fine. No issues at all after she's up and running. Is the card starting to fail? It's just a tad irritataing so far.

Currently running the 78.03 drivers. Did it with the 80.40's and the 77.77's also. Haven't ran Driver Cleaner in a while though.

AMD AthonXP 2400+
Epox 8KHA+
1.5gb(1536mb) DDR 2100(2700) Ram
SB Live 5.1
Altec Lansing AVS500 Surround speakers
PNY Verto GForceFX 5950 Ultra 256mb
WinXP Home
Toshiba Cable Modem
SilenX 450w power supply
Sony 52x CDR/RW
52x CDRom
**** case / 4 case fans
8 USB ports (2 on mobo, 1-4 port card, 1-2 port card)
Maxtor 120gb ATA/133 7200rpm HD
Maxtor 40gb ATA/133 7200rpm HD

[Eagle]

Ran Driver Cleaner 3, and reinstalled the 78.03 driver, all in safemode. I guess I'll see what happens from here. I'm guessing it's just a driver issue or some kind of confict.

[Splat]

You may want to run a check on your hard drives while you are at it. Could be a bad spot on the boot volume.

Bob

[Eagle]

Driver Cleaner was no help.

You may want to run a check on your hard drives while you are at it. Could be a bad spot on the boot volume.
Bob

How does one go about checking this?

[hey_moe]

There is a couple of quickies you might wanna try. Pull the sound card and blow out the connection with air. Also reinstall Direct X and run through the test. Use Drive Cleaner Pro in safe mode. Also go into your Registry and remove the left overs. After that reboot into safe mode and install the new drivers of your choice and tell me what happens...Mike....Do a scan disk to why ya playing and select correct all errors

[Eagle]

Mike,
Pulled sound card and blew out slot.
Dusted the rest of inside.
Uninstalled DX 9c and reinstalled.
Uninstalled SP2
Ran a repair XP install
Reinstalled SP2
Ran Driver Cleaner Pro
Installed 77.77 drivers
Multiple boots and reboots
FU'd anti virus and reinstalled
Ran scan disc on both drives twice

Have to update winders now.

Will let you know if things are better or not after a few days of shut downs and boot ups. Or sooner if it still screws up.

[Eagle]

Well none of that helped. Got home from work and booted up and got the Blue Screen with the same message. Rebooted and all is well.

After doing everything my NAV won't update right, just something else to figure out I guess.

[hey_moe]

What a bummer! Have you tried a restore yet? If you are getting the blue screen you got a program or a dll that has got out of wack....finding it will take some time. When was the last time you did a real format....and have you run check disk yet from your main hard drive properties. I have found out in the past that when you use MS to format your hard drive it still leave trash in your hard drive. There is a program called wipe disk that does it right.Have you blew out everything to make sure this isn't a heat or power problem...that card you added does put out some heat and needs plenty of juice..Mike

[Eagle]

Everything is clean and all the fans are working. I got a 450w PS so I think I got plenty of juice. It was working good for a long while and I haven't added anything new lately. Haven't formatted in about a year, and I'll mess around with more things first. Haven't done a system restore cause I constantly delete all but the latest restore points. Did do a Repair XP install though and that was no help. Downloaded a hard drive checking utility today from Maxtor(both drives are theirs) and the advanced check did find and repair some bad spots on my main HD. I'll see tomorrow if that fixed it and if not try something else.

[Eagle]

Booted fine Tue., Wed., Thur. then yesterday BSOD.

Both HD check good using Maxtor's MaxBlast HD Utility.
All memory cards check good with MemTest32 and Windows Memory Test.
Did a repair install of XP.
Rebuilt the Boot.INI, also changed it to OptOut.
Ran System File Checker and checks good.
Flashed the BIOS.
Swapped Vid Card.
Temps look good right now :
the case is 84°(28.9C)
CPU is 96°(35.6C)
vid card GPU core is 100.4°(38C) and ambient is 87.8°(31C)
All fans are running.
Update mouse, joystick drivers as well as tried different video drivers.

Still getting BSOD after POST and Windows logo screen. Sometimes cursor shows before BSOD and sometimes it doesn't.
After it boots up there are no problems at all.
How can I check PSU?

[hey_moe]

If you feel like itching it....do a format. If you have a screwed up dll you will never find it. Also if you have bits and pieces of other drivers left in your registry it will do the same thing. Before I start looking for a hardware problem I do a format, that way I know it's not a software issue. MS says 95% of computers problem are software related....I tend to believe that also. I not saying that this is your problem but you know the two of us are always trying new drivers out and posting our findings...lol. I try and do a complete format using the program Wipe Disk......and it does a goos wipe. After it cleans the HD you have to install XP twice...lol...Let me know what happens...don't blow your ain't-tis up now:costumes:

[Eagle]

Thanks Mike, not sure if I want to format or just deal with it for awhile longer. I'll format it sooner or later though.

[Splat]

Maxtor drives? What size? I would say find a different drive checking utility and run it a bunch of times. See if errors keep poping up. My experience has been that sometimes they pop up and sometimes they dont, but they usually dont go away. If you get bad sectors/blocks whatever the machine will not use them, and others will fail eventually. I went thru this for about 2 weeks before the drive became useless. The replacemnt Maxtor sent failed a year later :-(

Bob

[Eagle]

OK I might have got it. Four cold boots now over three days and so far so good. I decided to try taking some RAM out and might have got it on the first try. I had 3 512mb sticks in, all are Kingston, 1 was PC2100 and the other 2 PC2700/2100 with the PC2100 the oldest. I took out the 2100 which was in the #1 slot and put one of the others there and left the 2100 out. Has booted OK since (keeping my fingers crossed).