J
Jennifairy
Guest
My computer has been going through a mean little routine for a while. The first few times it is started up, it may only go on for 5-10 minutes before it crashes - the screen freezes up, then goes black. Often it will come back on, but it can crash again after 5-10 minutes. Or not. But usually it will. When it does, it often will not come back on, instead the monitor will get the "No Signal" sign up. The PC is still running, and it can be difficult to switch it off (hard reboot required).
On startup, it may make a BIOS beep code complaint, but as my motherboard's manufacturer does not have a website, and I can't find any other website that identifies the code, that is lost info on me.
And bizarely, kicking the side of the PC has in the past been the only way to get it to boot back up - or leaving it switched off for hours.
However, violence is not the answer, plus I've now kicked my ventilation unit loose a few times, so I refrain from kicking.
Occasionally, the "No signal" message won't come up. The PC will make some responsive noises to things like Ctrl + Alt + Del, or Esc, but only reboot will bring the monitor back up.
Sometimes I get the blue screen death instead. Hard reboot.
When I get an error report / DOS screen advising Windows did not boot up correctly, the error always seems to have something to do with my graphics card... The drivers are updated. It didn't help. The card is stuck in correctly. And there are times when it runs perfectly all day.
I've run virus checkers, disc cleanups and checkers, everything is clean and tidy, and I'm not overloading it on crazy greaphic heavy sites, though it does seem to hate Flash banners... the error messages may say that the offending file was "stuck in an infinite loop".
I can of course replace the card. But as this is a PCI card, there is a limit to how many cards like that I can get. And I really don't care about how old my PC is
just as long as it works. I've worked in support long enough to know that newer, faster, bigger is surely not always better.
Any ideas? Will a new card actually make a difference / i.e. can the card just age? I'm not using anything resource-heavy, I am mostly online, and using low level Office documents, etc.
Or is there else likely wrong with it? It's XP, SP2, enough RAM to not screw up this badly, etc...
thanks for help!
On startup, it may make a BIOS beep code complaint, but as my motherboard's manufacturer does not have a website, and I can't find any other website that identifies the code, that is lost info on me.
And bizarely, kicking the side of the PC has in the past been the only way to get it to boot back up - or leaving it switched off for hours.
However, violence is not the answer, plus I've now kicked my ventilation unit loose a few times, so I refrain from kicking.
Occasionally, the "No signal" message won't come up. The PC will make some responsive noises to things like Ctrl + Alt + Del, or Esc, but only reboot will bring the monitor back up.
Sometimes I get the blue screen death instead. Hard reboot.
When I get an error report / DOS screen advising Windows did not boot up correctly, the error always seems to have something to do with my graphics card... The drivers are updated. It didn't help. The card is stuck in correctly. And there are times when it runs perfectly all day.
I've run virus checkers, disc cleanups and checkers, everything is clean and tidy, and I'm not overloading it on crazy greaphic heavy sites, though it does seem to hate Flash banners... the error messages may say that the offending file was "stuck in an infinite loop".
I can of course replace the card. But as this is a PCI card, there is a limit to how many cards like that I can get. And I really don't care about how old my PC is
just as long as it works. I've worked in support long enough to know that newer, faster, bigger is surely not always better.Any ideas? Will a new card actually make a difference / i.e. can the card just age? I'm not using anything resource-heavy, I am mostly online, and using low level Office documents, etc.
Or is there else likely wrong with it? It's XP, SP2, enough RAM to not screw up this badly, etc...
thanks for help!