Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Topgun on February 24, 2009, 01:29:00 pm
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My aunt's computer is having problems. one day she turned it on and all it would show was colored stripes. she tried leaving it on for awhile and eventually windows started. the next time however, the computer didn't do anything. I brought it to my house to see what was up, and when I turned it on, it got all the way to where you see that window logo and the wannabe progress bar. I start it up in safe-mode and I can get into windows.
I also noticed that, on the place where you plug in the video card, it was missing the thing that you screw those plastic screw things. you know, the screw is on the cable and you screw it into the video card plug.
anyway, I think that when that fell out, it caused a short-circuit on the card, making those stripe things. when I brought it to my house, it must have fallen out, allowing me to start it at least half-way up. and I guess the short also messed-up windows so I can only start in safe-mode.
what do you think?
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Can't you replace the card temporarily to put your theory to test? Any POS card that can be plugged in will do.
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It happen to my Nvidia Geforce 440 MX
You need to replace the graphic card.
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Can't you replace the card temporarily to put your theory to test? Any POS card that can be plugged in will do.
I don't think I will get anywhere with that. It's no longer giving me the stripes. it just won't start windows, only in safe-mode.
when I try to start windows, it just gets stuck at the windows logo.
something like this:
(http://www.askdavetaylor.com/0-blog-pics/parallels-windows-adjusted-screen-resolution.png)
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Such stripes can be visible if A) Monitor is broken B) Cable is broken C) Video card is broken. Now, since you probably didn't bring the monitor with you, it can't be A. I don't know what you did with the cable, try another cable. As for the last, try swapping the card temporarily. The fact that stripes don't appear now, doesn't mean it isn't the card.
If Windows won't boot with swapped card either, boot using Enable VGA Mode. If luck allows, you can uninstall video card drivers and restart. Maybe XP will boot normally then. If not, boot using Enable Boot Logging. When booting gets stuck, wait a while and then reboot into safe mode to view Ntbtlog.txt in Windows-folder. It might be able to tell what it loads when it gets stuck.
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Wow topgun, that's a post windows install screen. That's the one you'll see when you're done installing and it detects stuff like proper resolution and color depth and wont have a progress bar.
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Tried Last Known Good (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307852)?
I can't remember if Windows counts a safe mode login as one but if it doesn't it should load in the settings Windows used last time you successfully logged in.
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Wow topgun, that's a post windows install screen.
I know. I just couldn't find the right splash screen.
will look for an old grfx card to test with.