Problem - Video Card or Virus?

[ShaunyR]

My brother claims he didn't do anything... so heres the story. He was getting ready to listen to some music on winamp and poof, the monitor turns off. He trys to turn it on and it as soon as the window's loading screen it restarts itself, it continues to do this over and over until you shut it off. I started it in safe mode with networking and searched for Spybot S&D, Symantec AntiVirus Corp. Edition, and AdAware updates and then searched using all of them. Symantic... Nothing. Spybot... Nothing. AdAware... 13 spyware files... successfully deleted. So I restarted the computer, hoping it would work and nothing, the same thing again and again. From the beginning I thought it was the video card but wasn't sure (video card being a GeForce FX 5900.) What could be wrong? Any ideas?

System Specs:
512MB Ram
GeForceFX 5900 Ultra 256MB
Asus Motherboard
P4 2.4 GHz with HT
480W Tt PSU
Windows XP Home Edition

 

[Rike]

Could be a bad refresh rate setting on your monitor. If your refresh was set to something your monitor couldn't handle, it would behave as you described.

Start in safe mode again and check your refresh rates for higher resolutions. Reset everything to 60 Hz and then restart. If it's the refresh rate, you will have fixed your problem.

 

[slirp]

If you were able to run it in safe mode I'd say it isn't hardware. If you're using windows XP restore to the last save point in the system restore. See if that does the trick.

 

[jbietel]

I had a similar problem, and this worked (I am using xp pro though)

try booting off of the windows xp cd, then chosing repair (using the recover console). This should take you to a dos-like screen. at that point you can choose the windows installation that you want to log into.
That in turn should give you a prompt. At that point try running chkdsk /r (this will check the drive for problems...will take quite a while. Once thats done you should be able to type exit (I think), and your machine will restart, and hopefully go right into windows. Good Luck.