Joined
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5 Posts
One of these days I've got to learn to stop trying to fix my computer myself. I always wind up making small problems into massive ones.
It's been a very difficult couple of weeks, and I'm not sure which of the following is relevant and which is not. I'll start at the start, and go through as many details as I can remember.
My current machine is a homebrew system, put together for one guy for another guy, who then gave it to me after I tried to perform some maintenance on my last desktop. Belarc advisor has it using a Micro-Star MS-7255 V2.0 2.0 motherboard, 3.07 gigahertz Intel Celeron D, and traditional Dell CRT monitor. (I can provide other info, if needed, but you may have to tell me how to get it.) When I got it, the graphics card was a GeForce 7200, but it never worked terribly well. Occasionally it would freeze up- the image would freeze, and the sound would start skipping very fast. Power Cycling the machine was the only way to get it working again. Over the past month or so, "occassionally" became "often", and then "constantly". When I finally got fed up, I hit a different tech support board, which shall remain nameless. They had helped me with some problems in the past, but this time they were negative help. They run me through the idiot's grocery list (update drivers, scan for viruses, etc.), a tactic that always irritates me in its' condescension and dismissiveness towards the problem-haver. I jump through the hoops anyway, and of course it doesn't work. I suggest it might be the video card, but I'm redirected towards running Memtest86+ and checking to see if the machine's overheating. I go along, but I suspect the people advising me don't know what they're talking about, and possibly don't care- they misread my posts at least once. When nothing works, I try a little experiment of my own, pulling the card from the slot and reverting to on-board video. This stops the crashes, confirming that it was the video card's problem. So I go out and get a new card, the aforementioned Radeon HD 4350. Things get better, for the time being.
I should have just left it at that, but I keep on getting crashes. The behavior changes, however- instead of freezing up forever, it freezes up for a few minutes, goes to a blank screen, then comes back up in 640X800 or so, with wonky colors and a message that ati2dvag has failed. (I suspect this has to do with a feature in ATI's Catalyst software that attempts to reset the GPU when the driver craps out.) It informs me to restart, which I do whenever it happens, but typically after restarting it will then display a blank screen, prompting a second restart and booting to "Last Known Good Configuration". After that it seems to work, but then inevitably it crashes again and the whole B.S. starts over.
I got mad. Which was probably my biggest mistake. After having the internet give me bad advice with this whole thing, I'm determined to fix the problem myself, despite the fact that I have only the vaguest idea of what to do. I try to uninstall the card through Device Manager, wipe the excess drivers with Add/Remove Programs and Driver Sweeper (in safe mode), and then reinstall. But I hit an obnoxious Catch-22: I need to plug in the card before reinstalling. No problem, but this routes the video signal through the card. And since I nixed the drivers, this means I'm staring at a blank screen and can't do nothing. (At least, that's my interpretation of the problem. All I know for sure is, whenever I tried to reinstall the card from scratch, I got a black screen after Windows takes over from the BIOS.) Additionally, I for some reason can't install it with the New Hardware Wizard, and the install disc from the card manufacturer is sporadic and doesn't detect it. I don't remember exactly what I did to get things working again, but System Restore was involved at some point. I'm sorry, but like I said, I was mad, not thinking rationally, and convinced that online tech support couldn't help me and didn't care.
Anyway, cut to the present- I get another crash this morning when I start thing up, after closing off last night with a seemingly endless series of crashes. I System Restore to a point before I even installed the card, thinking again to start from scratch, but hit that same Catch-22 as before, and now I can't boot without it either crashing or giving me a blank screen. Finally, I have to pull the card from the slot and revert to on-board video again just to get things functional.
And that's where I am today. I'm convinced the problem is that I f'ed up with the drivers somewhere, or probably everywhere, but there's possibly also an underlying problem that was causing trouble before I decided I was MacGyver and conked the whole thing up. Can anyone help me? I'll be glad to provide any information on my system that you could show me how to get.
EDIT: One more thing. Found New Hardware Wizard is now also detecting a "Video Controller (VGA Compatible)" that needs to be installed. The Graphics card isn't in the slot currently, so I think that's for on-board video.
It's been a very difficult couple of weeks, and I'm not sure which of the following is relevant and which is not. I'll start at the start, and go through as many details as I can remember.
My current machine is a homebrew system, put together for one guy for another guy, who then gave it to me after I tried to perform some maintenance on my last desktop. Belarc advisor has it using a Micro-Star MS-7255 V2.0 2.0 motherboard, 3.07 gigahertz Intel Celeron D, and traditional Dell CRT monitor. (I can provide other info, if needed, but you may have to tell me how to get it.) When I got it, the graphics card was a GeForce 7200, but it never worked terribly well. Occasionally it would freeze up- the image would freeze, and the sound would start skipping very fast. Power Cycling the machine was the only way to get it working again. Over the past month or so, "occassionally" became "often", and then "constantly". When I finally got fed up, I hit a different tech support board, which shall remain nameless. They had helped me with some problems in the past, but this time they were negative help. They run me through the idiot's grocery list (update drivers, scan for viruses, etc.), a tactic that always irritates me in its' condescension and dismissiveness towards the problem-haver. I jump through the hoops anyway, and of course it doesn't work. I suggest it might be the video card, but I'm redirected towards running Memtest86+ and checking to see if the machine's overheating. I go along, but I suspect the people advising me don't know what they're talking about, and possibly don't care- they misread my posts at least once. When nothing works, I try a little experiment of my own, pulling the card from the slot and reverting to on-board video. This stops the crashes, confirming that it was the video card's problem. So I go out and get a new card, the aforementioned Radeon HD 4350. Things get better, for the time being.
I should have just left it at that, but I keep on getting crashes. The behavior changes, however- instead of freezing up forever, it freezes up for a few minutes, goes to a blank screen, then comes back up in 640X800 or so, with wonky colors and a message that ati2dvag has failed. (I suspect this has to do with a feature in ATI's Catalyst software that attempts to reset the GPU when the driver craps out.) It informs me to restart, which I do whenever it happens, but typically after restarting it will then display a blank screen, prompting a second restart and booting to "Last Known Good Configuration". After that it seems to work, but then inevitably it crashes again and the whole B.S. starts over.
I got mad. Which was probably my biggest mistake. After having the internet give me bad advice with this whole thing, I'm determined to fix the problem myself, despite the fact that I have only the vaguest idea of what to do. I try to uninstall the card through Device Manager, wipe the excess drivers with Add/Remove Programs and Driver Sweeper (in safe mode), and then reinstall. But I hit an obnoxious Catch-22: I need to plug in the card before reinstalling. No problem, but this routes the video signal through the card. And since I nixed the drivers, this means I'm staring at a blank screen and can't do nothing. (At least, that's my interpretation of the problem. All I know for sure is, whenever I tried to reinstall the card from scratch, I got a black screen after Windows takes over from the BIOS.) Additionally, I for some reason can't install it with the New Hardware Wizard, and the install disc from the card manufacturer is sporadic and doesn't detect it. I don't remember exactly what I did to get things working again, but System Restore was involved at some point. I'm sorry, but like I said, I was mad, not thinking rationally, and convinced that online tech support couldn't help me and didn't care.
Anyway, cut to the present- I get another crash this morning when I start thing up, after closing off last night with a seemingly endless series of crashes. I System Restore to a point before I even installed the card, thinking again to start from scratch, but hit that same Catch-22 as before, and now I can't boot without it either crashing or giving me a blank screen. Finally, I have to pull the card from the slot and revert to on-board video again just to get things functional.
And that's where I am today. I'm convinced the problem is that I f'ed up with the drivers somewhere, or probably everywhere, but there's possibly also an underlying problem that was causing trouble before I decided I was MacGyver and conked the whole thing up. Can anyone help me? I'll be glad to provide any information on my system that you could show me how to get.
EDIT: One more thing. Found New Hardware Wizard is now also detecting a "Video Controller (VGA Compatible)" that needs to be installed. The Graphics card isn't in the slot currently, so I think that's for on-board video.
