Can a bad video card cause BSOD?

[techwanabe]

I started getting the BSOD on my Dell, and it has a Radeon X800SE video card. I've suspected it going bad, noisy fan and all, maybe over heating. On a number of occasions as early as 6 months ago, the screen would just go blue during a 3D game. It seemed the 3D circuit was failing. That started again a few days ago and now the computer will BSOD every 5 to 10 minutes or so. I wonder if it is the video card going bad.

I have swapped out the ram sticks to see if those were at fault, but it seems I get the BSOD anyway, no matter how those are arranged or some removed and other replaced.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Could be the video card going, or perhaps the PSU.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Usually if video cards are going bad they A) don't give you video or B) give you corrupted video. But judging by what you've said my money would be on the video card as well. Do you have another card to swap out to double check?

Also do you catch any of the text on the BSOD? BSODs can be caused by a lot of things not just bad ram. Try reinstalling the drivers for the card perhaps.

 

[techwanabe]

When I was working in IT a few years back, I tried to find clues in the text of the BSOD message, but it usually didn't help. I did install an updated driver for the video card and it still blue screened.

I got home from out of town and I just reinstalled all the hardware drivers from the Dell driver disk to make sure those aren't the reasons for the BSOD. So far I've been up and running a little while ok, but I also am running on single stick of 512mb just to go through memory process of elimination.


I have ordered a somewhat better but low cost replacement card, Sapphire HD 4650 PCIe card - been told its much better than the ol Radeon X800SE. That should arrive tomorrow or next day.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Hopefully that will solve your problem. If not burn a copy of memtest and run it through.

 

[techwanabe]

I pulled all memory and am running on 1 single stick of 512mb right now. I had 2 gig in it spread out across 2x 512mb and 1 single 1g. Old video card is still in there and its been running all night and all morning so far. I still suspect the video card. One thing I did was put back a stableizer thing Dell puts in the hold the video card firmly in place. It was out for the trip so that might be the card isn't tight in the PCIe socket. Just musings. New cars is on its way but at present operational and stable.