Help! Random Purple & Green Vertical Lines on my display!

[crazydj]

Hi guys!

 

There are Random Purple & Green Vertical Lines on my display! These lines "change" with my BIOS screen, Windows loading Screen and my desktop screen.

 

Symptoms

This happened suddenly after i installed Tremulous on my PC. I went to download it and was in the main menu trying to join games. Suddenly, my whole PC hung i had to force restart it. When my PC was POSTing, my BIOS screen had white vertical lines. They changed position when i reached my loading screen and finally had purple and green vertical lines when i was in Windows. My startup applications loaded very slowly.

 

After about 5 mins or so, the lines dissappeared but my resolution was still messed up and my card was not registered. A few minutes later, the problem came back.

 

Something to add, the letters on lets say, google or Overclock.net, if the text are black in color, some alphabets apprear green. Exactly like this.--> Overclock.net

 

My monitor screen looked like this when i took a picture of it on my cellphone. Notice the vertical lines on my monitor screen.

http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad291/crazydj_sgbikes/crazydjsScreen.jpg?t=1254869280

 

However, when i printscreened a screenshot of my display settings, the lines were not present. On the display settings, my videocard was not registered.

http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad291/crazydj_sgbikes/ScreenshotofDisplaySettings.jpg?t=1254868889

 

What i did

I reseated my video card, cleaned the connectors and the monitor and videocard pins. As an added procedure, i reseated my RAM as well. I installed the latest drivers from nvidia but the problem still persisted. It appears that my monitor screen is not the one at fault. I even resetted the jumper settings on my mobo.

 

May i know what could be the problem? Was it Tremulous that caused this problems? Something to do with the refresh rate or did my card suddenly overheat? Or could it even be a virus that was written into my bios settings? The details of my rig are below.

 

System: My Core 2 Duo Rig

CPU

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Motherboard

Asus P5N-E SLI 650i Memory

PC6400/800 Crucial DDR2 1GB CL5 x2 Graphics Card

XFX NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB DDR3

1x Segate 320GB 16MB 5 Years SATA2 1x Segate 500GB

Corsair HX520W Modular PSU Case

CoolerMaster Centurion 5 w/Side Window (Silver)

Thermaltake Ruby Orb

Windows Vista Home Premium 32 Bit

 

Also, I just got hold of my friend's XFX 8500GT. The problem was, i had to keep reseatting the card to get it to boot. So basically i had to take the card and put it back in 5 times until i could hear the normal startup beep. But with the 8500GT, nothing is wrong with my display. As clear and normal as ever.

 

So my question is, is this normal for me that i have to keep reseatting my card to get it to work? Normally when i help to repair or upgrade my friends rigs, this is rather common when switching OLD CARDS, especially for my old Socket A rig. Is this normal?

 

I urgently require the assistance of you guys and please help me rectify the problem. Thanks to all in advance!

[chuan.z]

Though not entirely impossible, it's rather rare for s/w to screw up the h/w. Tried the other PCIe x16 slot?

[redbeacon]

Along with the others, I'm going to take a stab at this issue.

 

Looking at certain areas:

 

Also, I just got hold of my friend's XFX 8500GT. The problem was, i had to keep reseatting the card to get it to boot. So basically i had to take the card and put it back in 5 times until i could hear the normal startup beep.

 

I'd put a misaligned or faulty graphics card connector (located on the mobo) as one of the possible reasons for the failure of the card. It may be possible that a card seated on a bad connector like this may not exhibit any

 

However, when i printscreened a screenshot of my display settings, the lines were not present. On the display settings, my videocard was not registered.

http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad291/crazydj_sgbikes/ScreenshotofDisplaySettings.jpg?t=1254868889

 

Hmm...faulty video driver or card probably. Even the place where the name of the graphic card goes is left blank.

 

May i know what could be the problem? Was it Tremulous that caused this problems? Something to do with the refresh rate or did my card suddenly overheat? Or could it even be a virus that was written into my bios settings?

 

When you installed the game, did it attempt to adjust your screen settings...i.e.: made your screen flicker momentarily?

 

==============

 

With that said, it may also be a distant possibility that the monitor may be malfunctioning, despite the clues that you have listed here. I ever had that before, and before it failed, my monitor simply "worked fine" at times where it should have failed, leading me to blame the graphics card instead. False sense of reality there - you need to test it more, or expect your monitor to be kept for longer periods of monitoring and observation at the tech's shop.

[crazydj]

1) My previous monitor got BURNED out while playing CNC3 at max graphics on my 8800GTS.

 

2) I doubt the video driver is screwed. Used driver sweeper and reinstalled the newly updated drivers.

 

3) From my understand, my system couldnt detect my card, but somehow it could POST, boot and run. On basic graphics with those lines.

 

4) When i installed the game, everything looked fine. I just joined the game then my PC hung, ctrl+alt+del to no avail. Force restart. Then the screen was fugged.

 

Now how? 8500GT works fine...

[chuan.z]

Your card really got fried (maybe due to faulty fan?) liao ar. Tried running your 8800GTS on your friend's PC?

[crazydj]

Fan is still running properly. And no, i have not tried running it on my friend's PC and i dont think i will.

[crazydj]

[uPDATE]

 

Hey guys! Guess what? I went to my local distributor for my region in Asia, and it so happens that the service centre is in my country. And very near my place. So i rode my motorcycle down to the service centre.

 

A nice indian fella, the technician attended to me. I was trying my luck regarding the warranty, but it couldnt get through. So i asked him to check it out for me what was wrong. He plugged it up saw the lines and told me that he had to re-solder all the connections from the GPU to the card.

 

"How much will this cost?" I asked.

 

"$30." He replied.

 

I asked him to go ahead with it. I waited for about 30-45 mins or so on the couch, reading old and oudated PC magazines. When he was done, he called me and my card was running 3dmark09. So okay, it worked, but i was sceptical.

 

"If anything is wrong can i come back again?" I asked.

 

"Yes, but if we need to replace anything, we'll just add up to it."

 

So when i went home, tested the card out, its working perfectly. The technician told me that the solders were messed up due to dust, heat and humidity. He had seen my problem before many times, but very rarely repairs them because he just sends them back to XFX to get them replaced.

 

Oh well, i am happy repairs only costs 30 bucks. I'll just wait and see if anything else goes wrong. If i didnt try my luck at the dealer, i would have gotten myself a Powercolor 4870 512MB! Now think of how much poorer i would have been!

[chuan.z]

That's cool, very professional of him to help out instead of just telling you no hope liao! Saved you a bunch.

[SunnyBhai]

Graphics card RAM is corrupted on your card. You will see these lines ( also called as Artefacts ) when the display buffer aka Graphics RAM is corrupted. This cannot be fixed

[crazydj]

I suspected it was my RAM too. But hell, the technician managed to fix it by rust re-soldering the connections from the card to the GPU!