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graphics card dead or alive?

fishmeister

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Posted June 8, 2011 at 11:02AM

Hi,

Started having issies with my pc this week and I am hopeing someone can point me in the right direction before I blow any money.

When watching videos the screen freezes, only way to exit is to boot the pc But it then come back with a blue screen and a load of message (sorry didn't read them). Then says I have had an issue (black screen) and to restart pc Restart takes place and goes back to step above.

To get out of this cycle I press F8 at restart and do rollback to a couple of weeks ago and all is fine, untill I view a video and the back to freeze screen lol.

So a few questions I am looking for help with please.

1, I guess the graphics card has died?, how do I check this before I buy a new one. 2, If I buy the same card GeForce 8300GS can I simply switch then and carry on. 3, will my PC only be compatible with certain cards? 4, will I have to do a full systyem restore following instalation (backing up files now lol) 5, any other things you can think of that may be the problem or may caus me issues.

Any help greatly appreciated (pc is a dell inspiron 530)

Cheers Paul.

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woody

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Posted June 8, 2011 at 11:07AM

Have you tried reloading the latest card driver?

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted June 8, 2011 at 11:10AM

We really need the code number from the Blue screen of death 0x000.... this will tell us where to start looking for the problem.

I suspect graphics card or drivers and or possibly memory (RAM)

  1. Operating system
  2. How much free space is available on your system hard drive?
  3. Update graphics drivers and retry
  4. Download burn to CD and Run memtest to check your RAM
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fishmeister

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Posted June 8, 2011 at 11:12AM

No, just assumed it would be busted.

Will give that a go, googling as we speak, cheers

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fishmeister

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Posted June 8, 2011 at 11:20AM

just checked card on h/w mgmt

disabled/enabled and checked driver for updates, it says all is good to go.

space is good, 68gb of 222 available on 1st drive 232gb of 232 available on 2nd drive

memtest (on to it now)

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lotvic

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Posted June 8, 2011 at 11:25AM

Manual ClickHere Use the Dell Diagnostics to check if anything shows there amiss.

  1. Turn on (or restart) your computer.

  2. When the DELL™ logo appears, press F12 immediately. (keep tapping F12 or you might miss it, if you do then let it boot to desktop and then reboot and try again) Select Boot to Utility Partition from the boot menu and press Enter. (If you see a message stating that no diagnostics utility partition has been found, run the Dell Diagnostics from the Drivers and Utilities CD media.)

  3. Press any key to start the Dell Diagnostics from the diagnostics utility partition on your hard drive

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fishmeister

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Posted June 8, 2011 at 11:42AM

Cheers will also try the f12 diags, just witing for backup of user profiles to complete just in case system restore is needed.

will keep you all posted, thansk again to you all appreciated

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fishmeister

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Posted June 8, 2011 at 1:48PM

ok, ran all tests and everything came back good?

so opened up the side of the pc and removed the graphics card, blew on it to remove 3 1/2 years of dust, put it back and everyting appears to be working now.

maybe I have a future in the PC repair business lol, fingers crossed.

but just incase things fall apart again in the next day or so, I guess that I can replace like for like cards withou the need for system restores?

Thanks guys.

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lotvic

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Posted June 8, 2011 at 2:30PM

We all forgot the obvious - overheating under load because choked with dust... sigh

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