About Justin Breithaupt Expertise I can answer queshtions about hardware problems in general. Driver issues. Nvidea Issues. Strange never before herd of issues. I can fix any unbroken or damaged or defective device. As long as it is using Windows.
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When I log on I see three or four bands of vertical lines on the screen. Trying to move pages around the lines on the screen to read them distorts the image. Occasionally, the computer crashes to a black screen and about every 3rd or 4th boot the vertical bands are gone and I can use the computer but there is still minor distortion in other new areas. Recently installed and uninstalled a game 3 - 4 times due to a patch problem, just before this started. Computer is 2+ years old and no new hardware recently added. Downloaded and installed updated video drivers to no avail.
System: Dell Dimension 8300 2.8ghz, Window XP Home SP2, Ram 1G, ATI Radeon 9800 128m, HD WD 200 Gig with about 140G open.
Answer -
OK something is loocking up in the video memory. Maybe the ram on the motherboard or the ram on the video card. Maybe something is overheating.
Thank you for getting back to me right away. I removed the video card and cleaned it... there was a lot of dust on the fan unit! Popped the video card back in and booted up. XP ran chkdsk program automatically and deleted some things that I could not read due to video distortion. XP then booted up and is running without the video distortion right now. Not sure how long this will last or if the cleaning and reseat of the video card and the chkdsk were the fix. However, if I continue to have problems should I consider a new video card? Thank you again for your help.
Answer Dust acts like aspestice or any other insulator. It keeps heat in. It also keeps fans from working right. cleaning the unit probably saved it's life. you should clean your computer out every 4 months or at least check to see if it needs cleaned. Another trick is to make sure all your air is coming in the front lower part of the case and blowing out the back by checking the arrow on the fans. then put a foam air filter from a lawn mower engine with no holes in it in front of the fan in the front. Make sure the filter is washed out and clean. clean the filter every two weeks to make sure air can get threw it without cloging it up. Much easier than taking the comtuer appart and cleaning the insides.
