My video card has gone screwy...

[VivienM]

Hi people!

Around 12 hours ago, my monitor just stopped picking up a signal from the video card. It came back like a minute later, but there was all kinds of corruption around the cursor, and clicking the mouse and stuff had no effect. Turned system off. Boot again, and the WinXP screen shows corruption, as does my desktop when it shows up. Turned off the system, got my trusty screwdriver out, opened 'er up, and pushed the video card in. Booted back up, it seemed fine.

Now (while I hadn't been doing anything for 45 minutes), Windoze displayed a message (in a 640x480 screen) telling me "Microsoft Windows detected and recovered from a device failure. Please save your work and reboot to restore full functionality." and a Clicking OK gave me ... nothingness . When I rebooted, I got the same corruption as earlier, and a message blaming my video card (a VisionTek GF3 Ti500 that has worked fine for a little over a year and a half). I turned the system off again, went back to the trusty screwdriver, pushed the card in, and it seems back up now. Event viewer has:
"The driver nv4_disp for the display device \Device\Video0 got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your hardware device vendor for any driver updates."

1. Does this mean the video card is dying? Time to buy that AiW9800 or Ti5900 or something else I've been eyeing?
2. Should I actually take out the video card and put it back in, rather than just pushing it back in?
3. Could the slot cooler I have next to the video card be part of the problem?
4. Anyone have any other advice? This thing is puzzling me... especially the fact that it would break again after 12 hours (I figured perhaps the card got loose when I moved the system a week ago... but why would it get loose again?)

 

[TourGuide]

1. Probably, and yes.
2. Yes.
3. It shouldn't unless you have tremendous dust/dirt buildup.
4. There is no telling how failing electronics will behave. The symptoms you're discribing sound very much like a failing vid card. I'd try to think of this moment as an "opportunity" to fix said problem. You know what to say to your wife or significant other, right (*wink, wink*)?

 

[VivienM]

Originally posted by: TourGuide
1. Probably, and yes.
2. Yes.
3. It shouldn't unless you have tremendous dust/dirt buildup.
4. There is no telling how failing electronics will behave. The symptoms you're discribing sound very much like a failing vid card. I'd try to think of this moment as an "opportunity" to fix said problem. You know what to say to your wife or significant other, right (*wink, wink*)?

Re: #2, after I posted (and pushed it back in), it failed again within two hours. Pulling it out and back in might help, but if all it does is extend the life by 2-3 hours, it's not worth the time spent on it (especially if it dies again after the store across the street closes).

Re: #4, I don't <b>have</b> a significant other, and this is probably the only situation where I'm glad not to 😛

I guess it's time to see if VisionTek will RMA the card (might as well get a fixed one, even if I do upgrade), and then go to the store and get something new. ATI or nVIDIA, that's the question... I really, really want an AiW 9800 Pro, though ATI drivers make me a bit hesitant... I guess whether the store across the street still has their competively priced (CAD$568 + tax) AiW9800 in stock will be the determining factor.