Computer Issues

K

King of Creation

Vault Fossil
So I was playing Knights of the Old Republic yesterday when all of a sudden my display just gets messed up. Some of the textures disappear, there are like checkerboard columns where no textures are, stuff like that. Then, I notice things are messed up in Windows too.
http://www.duckandcover.cx/koc/stupidcomputer.jpg

See those pink lines? Those are everywhere in Windows programs and stuff. I just downloaded and installed the latest drivers for my video card (Radeon 9800), but nothing changed. Also, in case it was just overheating or something, I sprayed the whole chasis down with a can of compressed air, removed the video card and sprayed that down, and left my computer off overnight. And, yet, the pink lines remain. Anyone have any ideas what the problem is and how to fix it?

edit: With the new drivers, ATI supplies this Catalyst control center thing, which has a "3D Preview" section. It shows both the pink lines and the "checkerboard" texture garbage.
http://www.duckandcover.cx/koc/messedup.jpg
 
Nope. Should I? How would I do it if it needs to be done.

Also, I've now noticed that some of the icons for things have changed. Like the torrent files I have on my desktop have some strange Word document icon now. bah.
 
what you might want to do it hold on to the installer for the new drivers, delete both the old and new, then install the new drivers again, to make sure things are clean.

You should be able to go to your control panel, and uninstall the drivers. They will show up in your add/remove programs.
 
Ok..so I uninstalled the drivers, installed the new Catalyst 5.4 drivers which came out last week. Restarted the computer, per install directions, logged into windows, and then the screen went black, monitor went into power save mode. Tried it like 10 times. I gave up and called Dell. After going through a bunch of stuff with the guy, they're sending me out a new video card overnight. Hopefully it will solve the problem. Until then, I'm stuck in safe mode.
 
King of Creation said:
Ok..so I uninstalled the drivers, installed the new Catalyst 5.4 drivers which came out last week. Restarted the computer, per install directions, logged into windows, and then the screen went black, monitor went into power save mode. Tried it like 10 times.
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Do you have an LCD by any chance? Either way, see if you can reinstall your monitor drivers - one thing that can cause a black screen like that is when your video card is trying to run the monitor at a higher refresh rate than it's capable of.
 
Yeah...I've got a Dell LCD monitor. I'll try what you said.

edit: So I tried reinstalling the drivers and reset the monitor to factory settings. I was able to at least get into Windows now, but the pink lines and stupid stuff are still there. Interestingly enough, when I run the computer with all the drivers uninstalled, there are no problems. Does that mean that it is definitely the video card?
 
King of Creation said:
edit: So I tried reinstalling the drivers and reset the monitor to factory settings. I was able to at least get into Windows now, but the pink lines and stupid stuff are still there. Interestingly enough, when I run the computer with all the drivers uninstalled, there are no problems. Does that mean that it is definitely the video card?
Click to expand...

Depends - is the video card still in, just without the ATI drivers? If so, I'd be looking more at the driver's than the video card, as I think any hardware defect would tend to show up regardless.

Are there still "unofficial" drivers for ATI cards? If so, it's probably worth tracking them down and giving them a shot. Can't remember the name offhand though.
 
Oh, well in that case, I can't really hold it against you, since my free laptop is several times worse.
 
a bit late, but in my opinion your vidram got corrupted (hardware issue).

so indeed, nothing to be done, trash old card, get new card (which you already have :) )
 
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