[Ezer]

Hello,

I am having a problem with my computer. When i go to boot it up, it boots fine up until the point right after the windows loading screen, then the screen goes black(right when you would normally log in) I did not know what to do so i rebooted and it goes to the screen where you choose to go into safe mode, etc. I tried start windows normally option and have the same problems. Then i tried last known good config. and same thing again. I tried safe mode and i can then log in.

From safe mode i tried to do system restore. That did not help anything. the last time i tried to reboot i got a blue screen with writing on it, but i cannot read it because the screen is chopped up with yellow, black, and blue vertical striping. this happened after i read somewhere to uncheck automatically restart in start up and recovery. now it is stuck on this blue coppy screen.

All of this has happened after a couple of random crashes/reboots while my son was playing a game on this computer. Before this there has never been any problems for years on this computer. I am not very pc literate so any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

[coastie65]

Hi Ezer and welcome to the forum. The initial problem you described is indicative of a graphics card failure. You did not say if you were using a graphics card, or an onboard Graphics chipset. You will need to reboot in safe mode and recheck the auto restart if at all possible. Depending on the games your son was playing, he could have been pushing the envelope on the specs for the game and thus the crashing, or it could have been a matter of the graphics package failing or just stretched beyon the capabilites. coastie65

[Ezer]

Thanks for your quick response, coastie. There is a graphics card, a nvidia 6800gt pci express. I did reboot in safe mode and rechecked the auto restart as you suggested. Now when i reboot it does that same blue screen, then i reboot again and it goes to the safe mode option screen. Is there a way to tell for certain if my video card is causing this problem? I would hate to buy a new card and then it still does the same thing.

[smax013]

FIrst, a question...do you have important files on the computer? If so, do you have a backup of those files? It appears you can boot into Safe Mode...if so, and you do have files that are important and you have NOT backed them up, then boot into Safe Mode and back up the files...NOW. While it is possible that we might find a solution that does not "mess" with the files, it is better to assume that something might happen to them and make sure they are backed up before we do anything else.



Now that any critical files are backed up, let look at some things to try. I am not so sure it is a dead graphics card yet...it could be, but there are plenty of things to try before we reach that point.



The first thing to try would be repair Windoze. This will require an actual Windoze install disk...if your computer only came with a "restore" disk from the computer manufacturer, then you might be SOL. This document has instructions: [d-1648] (see the second part). It is possible that a driver or some system component got "trashed". If you can boot into Safe Mode, that tells us the the graphics card is NOT dead, but most likely that some piece of the system software that does NOT get load in Safe Mode (Safe Mode is basically loading Windoze with a reduced set of drivers and system components) is trashed. Doing a Windoze repair might solve that problem.



If that does not work, then you might consider reformatting and reinstalling Windoze. I would go that route LONG before buying another graphics card (unless you WANT a better graphics card...but if it is NOT the graphics card itself, you will still have to eventually solve the problem.

[Ezer]

First off, thanks smax for helping me. Now i do have important files on the computer, however I have never done a back up and therefore i do not know how to do it. After reading your comment, it seems I should have been doing this, but do not know how. Could you tell me how to do this or give a link to directions on doing it.?

I do not have a restore disk..this computer was built with a friend and i do have the windows xp professional disk. I will goto the link you provided after i post this.

Thanks again for your help

[Ezer]

ok, after inserting the windows disk and accepting the license it went to the windows xp professional setup, however, it is not giving me the option for repair. It only will let me set up windows, create a partition or delete a partition.

any ideas on what to do now?

[Ezer]

Well since i was getting nowhere with the windows repair, i thought i would try replacing the graphics card. Coastie, you were right all along. I replaced it with an identical card from my daughters computer and it booted up perfectly. I will have my son test it out on his games and hopefully everything will be alright.

Thanks again to everyone for helping me

[smax013]

Ezer said:

Well since i was getting nowhere with the windows repair, i thought i would try replacing the graphics card. Coastie, you were right all along. I replaced it with an identical card from my daughters computer and it booted up perfectly. I will have my son test it out on his games and hopefully everything will be alright.

Thanks again to everyone for helping me

It seems you have a solution. I still not sure I necessarily believe it is the graphics card...it is possible that the process of swapping cards "forced" Windoze to re-install the graphics card drivers, which might have been the problem. If this is the case, then putting the original graphics card back in should still allow things to work fine...if you put it back in and still have the problem, then it would definitely seem to be the graphics card (which I admittedly find a little tough to buy...but I am wrong every century or so ;) ).



With regards to your question about how to backup, there are a number of ways to do it. The "easiest" way would be to get an external hard drive (USB drive) and just copy your important files from one drive to another. If you want to get a bit more "sophisticated" you can get a backup program (many external hard drives will come with a basic back up program) to backup your files from the internal drive to an external drive. Other options are to burn important files to CD or DVD (but this can be a pain in the rear if you have a LOT of large files...it would take quite a few disks, even with DVDs) or copy files to a flash drive (this would only really work if you don't have a lot of files).



I am glad you found a solution...I would still certainly encourage you to back up your files...just imagine if it was a problem that was worse and "wiped out" your files. Now is a good time to "learn a lesson" when it is not as hard a lesson as it could be. I will get off the soap box now. :)

[Ezer]

Well, I will put the other video card back in tomorrow and see if it works or not. I did check and there are no new drivers for the video card installed, just the same one i updated back in may. I guess I should see if there are more recent ones while I am at this. I will also shop for a external hard drive as well. this is the first time I have had any trouble with a computer...so i did learn a valuable lessson. I dont want to lose all my files for any reason.

Also, I am wondering still, why when i went to do the repair, it would'nt give me the option to press R, even though in all the stuff i read on this site, it said it should have been there. Do you have any idea to that?

Thanks

[Ezer]

Hello. I did put the original video card back into the pc this morning, and yes, it still had the same problems as before. I took it back out and put it in my daughters pc(the one where i got the other card..exact same model)and my daughters pc would not boot correctly as it hangs up on the windows logo scren with all kinds of graphic lines through it.

So it seems coastie was correct all along, however i would like to thank all of you for your suggestions. The new video card is working fine and no problems thus far. The question is, do I buy myself a new video card or my daughter one?

Thanks again!

Ezer