Video corruption when cold booting

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Whenever I start my computer up the video is all distorted. Letting it run a bit and then rebooting fixes the problem, but this computer is fairly new and I want to find out where the problem is coming from. I've tried 2 different video cards (radeon 9800 pro and geforce 2 mx 400). I had to rma the pro because the fans died. I'm using a enermax 550W powersupply. There is no OC the computer.

 

[amdskip]

Screenshot would be helpful. Can you try using a pci video card to see what it does. Are you positive that the monitor is in 100% working condition.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

It's really hard for me to take a screen shot of since I wouldn't beable to see what I'm doing. With the radeon there was lines going through the screen and with the geforce the whole screen is a color. If I restart shortly after the cold boot with the geforce all the letters will be shifted and garbled. Also when I restart too soon what looks like translusant vertical lines will distort the screen.

 

[tennesota]

So many possibilties...

What resolution are you running? Perhaps it's set too high?
Maybe a driver conflict? Did you remove the ATI drivers before installing the nVidia drivers?

Did you build the system yourself? If you built the rig yourself did you install WinXP as a fresh installation? Maybe reinstall the OS and start from scratch?

Is the video card properly seated in the AGP slot?

I could probably list a couple more suggestions but I have to bail out now for the morning drive to work. I'm sure others here will have suggestions too. 😛

 

[nanaki333]

cute! try a PCI video card in that rig to see if your AGP port is bad? do either of those cards behave that way in another machine?

 

[myocardia]

Yeah, it sounds to me like your monitor is going out. Try taking it over to someone else's house (or just hooking it up to another system, if you have more than one) while it's still "cold". I once had a tv that did the same type of thing, before going out altogether.