Weird/Distorted screen on start-up..

[Dedge89]

This has happened to me a few times since I've had this computer but I've always managed to fix it somehow, this time on the other hand..

Basically, when I turn on my PC the usual images that come up on my monitor during boot-up (e.g the black screen with white writing, my Asus A8V screen, then the Windows XP loading screen) are all distorted with weird blocks and colours and sometimes this would be accompanied by a beeping sound in my PC. It will get to Windows XP loading screen, load and then restart again through the same process.

The last few times this has happened over the last few years all I did was take out my GFX card (a 6800gt 256mb AGP), clean it and put it back and it would work. If that didn't work, I would change the power supply cable thing going into it (you know, the red black and yellow cables that power your things) to another one that was free and it would fix it.

This time I took it out and cleaned it but to no avail. Tried swapping around with free power supply cables, even got out a fresh one from my 6800gt box and tried that but it didn't help. Tried unplugging all the fans so the GFX card gets more power...no help...

Anyone know whats the problem? I don't mind if the GFX card is bust, aslong as my harddrive is still fine...

PC Specs; AMD Athlon processor (2.2ghz), A8V deluxe motherboard, 1 gig RAM, 6800gt 256mb..

thanks!

 

[kalrith]

It sounds like your graphics card is bad. Do you have a spare or integrated graphics that you could try? Do you have another machine that you could try the card in?

 

[Dedge89]

No...I've just got a laptop and this PC..

 

[kalrith]

Can you boot into safe mode?

 

[Dedge89]

I can get onto BIOS....Don't exactly remember how to boot into safe mode..

 

[kalrith]

F8

 

[Dedge89]

Ok thanks so far mate, got some weird results to report...

After mashing F8 I come to a blue box with 4 harddrive ( I think..) selections. The first option allows me to go into safe mode but crashes at a screen with a list of white text.
The second option didn't allow me to select a safe mode (the distorted screen didn't show it or it wasn't an option..) but it had Last Well Known Configuration That Worked or whatever the actual sentence is. Didn't work.

3rd option, same as before Last Well Known.. etc and the computer restarts and everythings fine!! Just logged in now and backing up my harddrive just in case but going to restart again and see if the problem comes back. I think thats very strange because surely just clicking something like that can't fix a GFX card problem?.. thoughts?

thanks!


edit; well my computer beat me to it, while I was browsing around, the screen randomly goes weird distorted again and crashes, out the blue..after turning it on again the screens still distorted but following the same method as last time but this time using the second option (I think its my MAXTOR harddrive and its also a possibility when I originally got it working up there ^ I used the second option accidentally again)..and now its coming back on again..

Also when I select the second option it restarts and I can enter through safe mode etc start windows normally etc...

Im going to see now how long it works for and if it does it again..