Random unstability - help

Grin

Member
Jul 21, 2001
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It's my computer again..something is really wrong, and here are the symptoms :
Everything works well for two weeks. Then one morning when I start the computer, I get graphical glitches when I try to start icq. I think 'not agaiiiinnn' and try to start a game, not even a 3d game, but a 2d strategy game ; and as soon as the game starts I see severe graphical glitches, and then everything hangs, even the sound, and then the computer shuts down (as XP does when system failures occur). When I restart the computer it takes very little to get screen glitches and then a hang..starting IE is enough. But right at start i get the error message 'Windows detected a possible device failure' followed by 'the graphicsdriver was unable to complete a drawframe'. Always this error. 'Further info' reveals this :
szAppName : Drivers.Display szAppVer : 104A00100700101681
szModName : pmxdisp.dll szModVer : 6.13.10.6031 Offset : EB2E06EA
Always exactly the same. After installing other drivers (which doesn't help), removing the PCI soundcard (which doesn't help), and blowing as much dust as I can from the graphcard fan (which doesn't help) I downclock my processor(which doesn't help), hit my mobo lightly(which doesn't help) , remove the graphcard and try to plug it in harder(it is connected enough obviously since it works sometimes, but the chassi and mobo are a bit out of synch so no card can go the very last bit in - but, you guessed it: that didn't work either) . So I give up and go to sleep for the night. When I wake up again everything works again.
Another thing that might be of relevance or not is that sometimes when windows has just started, one hd (primary) works like a demon for 4 minutes or so before I can do anything. Sometimes when it does this the hd-led switches on and stays on while the whole computer hangs. The hanging and permanent hd-light don't happen often tho.
ANy ideas? ANY ideas?

Specs:
Abit BH6 rev1.02
SBLive!
Hercules Kyro2
256 mb SDRAM
P-3 800@896

 

Grin

Member
Jul 21, 2001
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Not for a while ..but I will, eventually.
Just now this morning I've had 4 system failures on 5 startups, 3 just from using IE and 1 as soon a windows had started.. :(
 

Cosmic_Horror

Golden Member
Oct 10, 1999
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if you boot up in safe mode does it work ok? try it a few times and see if it works or not...

if it does, setyour video card to vga 640x 480 and see if the windows runs ok *eg IE, icq etc*

let us know how you go :)
 

Grin

Member
Jul 21, 2001
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*siigh*..I'm sorry for the late reply by the way, but since last I posted my computer has worked well...now the unstability-flux is back in full force though :)
Safe mode seems to run fine, eventhough the res is 1024*768 with 32k colours...graphics are slow, but at least the system doesn't hang.
I tried to run normal mode in 640*480 by the 'List all models' buttom for the graphicscard..but then the screen turned off and it hanged.
Now most of the time when I start windows normally, the screen turns off just when it's supposed to enter windows.
What's wrong ?? :(
 

DaiShan

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2001
9,617
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first things first, what is your FSB at? you should reset to factory defaults, next I would take the system out of the case and run it on a piece of static paper to see if you can get it to run (making sure the video card gets all the way in. I would also clean the leads of the video card with a little alcohol, next if that doesn't fix it I would uninstall the video card via device manager, then reinstall it with the drivers. I would also install the latest chipset drivers for your motherboard. if that doesn't help, I would try another video card in there, then I would try a new psu, you may not have enough power, or the psu may be going. If that doesn't work, I would try to reinstall windows (you can swap the order of the last 2 steps if you want depending on which you think would be easier for you.)

/edit I think I have read that the kyro does NOT like high FSB speeds, so that would be where I would start.
 

Silvarea

Junior Member
May 9, 2002
4
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Before you do all that work I would get my hands on a good Power supply (if you can borrow one from a friend would be great) and try that first, it will probably save you a bunch of time,,, One of the really BAD things about Win XP is you can't see your board Bios stats on boot up with win 98 or me you see your mem check ok plus most all boards now days will tell you their state like OK or ! ? so you can see you have an issue with the hardware instead of just guess your best the win XP... I can't believe there was so little out cry about that change for both large companies and the single user that one little change means extra down time and more money spent to find a problem then the old way... I had very similiar problems to you I had my video Oc'd and one day I started getting little video glitches. So I backed down the oc and all was well then a few weeks.. Then it started again so I set the card to normal clocking and all was great for several months. Then it started again but I had win me and my bios kept giving me a random"!" instead of an "ok" even though the memory always checked out so since I have had PSU's go bad before I know that you get all kinds of weird failures when they start dying, one computer I had refused to find the mouse,,, I went down bought a new PSU and poof no more issues .. Good Luck
 

Grin

Member
Jul 21, 2001
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Hmm..I'm gonna try cleaning the vidcard leds with a little alcohol.
My FSB is at 112, but these problems occur even when I run at normal FSB speed, so I don't think that is the issue.
I don't know if I mentioned it in my previous posts, but some days my computer hangs spontaneously. Just shuts down, as in winXP system failure. Almost always I don't get a blue screen though..however, when the computer is starting up and experiences a system failure, i get bluescreens. The last two ones, (they happened some minutes ago when I tried to start the dang thing) said : RQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL ..weird sentence , too. And a minute later this : PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA and it mentioned ntfs.sys.

It should be said that the random failures and the random graphical glitches followed by failures are probably connected, heh.
Anyhow, l've run the computer without playing any games now, or doing enything more graphical than watching .avi files, and it has run steadily. As soon as I tried a game though, *glitch* and failure.
So yesterday I tried outting my PCI sb Live! in another PCI-slort. And Voilá the chaos theory possessing my computer changes yet again, 'cause everything works, even games, Not a glitch.
So..today, I start the comp..and get random failures again. Just failures, without warning. Even in safe mode. Argh..
 

Grin

Member
Jul 21, 2001
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Anyhow, I'll be gettin another vid card to test late rthis week; perhaps tomorrow.
The state of my computer seems to be degenerating too...it now takes 2 -4 tries to get the dang thing started correctly. What happens when it fails to start correctly is that the screen goes black when it's supposed to load windows. Sometimes the screen goes 'off' i.e quits recieving a signal, sometimes just black..the effect is kind of the same though.
I can't alt+ctrl+del when that happens, so just reset recurringly until it gets it right.
And I can just forget about anything very graphical, like any game at all :)
 

Grin

Member
Jul 21, 2001
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K, I have now tried to different graph cards. One 1mbyte VGA card anda creative geforce 2 gts.
With the 1mb card the computer hangs when starting up windows, or rather fails ; a bluescreen pops up every time I try to start windows, safe mode or not.
With the Geforce 2 GTS, the screen flimmers. I don't know if that is an english word, maybe you could tell me? Anyway, it flimmers more when the hard-drive is working, believe it or not ; noticably more. It just flimmers a little when the hd isn't working.
Any clues? Change PSU , perhaps?
 

jrose

Junior Member
May 29, 2002
5
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I'd definately suggest trying a new power supply - a 350 watt isn't expensive and should do the trick unless you have heaps of gear in there.

The fact that your video flickers when the harddisk is working hard seems to indicate that its running out of power - possibly your system is right on the edge of stablity with your current PSU, and every couple of weeks or so there is a slight brown-out in your area that causes these problems. The only other thing I can think of that might cause flickering like that would be an IRQ conflict, but that wouldn't come and go randomly every 2 weeks.

I guess another test you could try would be to unplug your cdrom/floppy drive/any additional harddrives you don't need to boot and see if it works then, however I don't know how much power this would save, as most of those devices would be using minimal power during bootup anyway.

Good luck with it anyway...