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Rank: Polio Power!
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So, I got a dilemma that happened in the last week or so. When my comp starts up, sometimes the "windows loading" image is a bunch of scrambled bars. I was alarmed at first, but once the login screen pops up, everything is fine. So I've been apprehensive, but not overall too concerned. Well today I was playing TF2 and the graphics error popped up in game. Everything from checkerboards to seeing frames, etc. Just a cacophony of crap and I excused myself from the game immediately. This hasn't happened before. Once I exited TF2, the errors went away. The computer is 5 years old. Got it in 2003 and I use it all the time. So it's got some mileage on it. If I have to replace the video card, I'm not even sure it would be worth it, but at the same time there's not much I can afford as far as getting a new machine. Any ideas what's up? I did a troubleshooting online and I'm getting the feeling it's either the video RAM or the comp RAM that's the core issue. Don't think ti's an overheating issue. The fans do work(they buzz but work).
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Rank: Fuckstick
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RichardAwesome wrote:Once I exited TF2, the errors went away. That's just Valve's materials system rebooting itself, exiting and rejoining the game fixes 80% of missing textures and deleting the "materials" folder in your TF2 install fixes 99.9% of them. But the other stuff is likely a driver error. Use dxdiag (Run-dxdiag in XP and dxdiag in the search bar in Vista) to check what graphics card and drivers you have and post back. Win Cookies Awarded: 7 (bawwwwww)
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Rank: Polio Power!
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Ciao Time wrote:RichardAwesome wrote:Once I exited TF2, the errors went away. That's just Valve's materials system rebooting itself, exiting and rejoining the game fixes 80% of missing textures and deleting the "materials" folder in your TF2 install fixes 99.9% of them. But the other stuff is likely a driver error. Use dxdiag (Run-dxdiag in XP and dxdiag in the search bar in Vista) to check what graphics card and drivers you have and post back. Do you mean the Team fortress 2 materials.gcf file? 128mb ATI Radeon 9800 ati2dvag.dll ver: 6.14.0010.6806
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Rank: Fuckstick
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Download the most recent drivers for your video card. This usually fixes these kinds of things. TEAM APARTMENT: No one rocks quite as hard as we do. Dick Cheney's Mechanical Heart wrote:the flying spaghetti monster skullfucked Bob's corpse. Lead Salad wrote:My ePenis is 10 feet long! WDF wrote:A pair in douchbaggery.
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delta62 wrote:Download the most recent drivers for your video card. This usually fixes these kinds of things. Done and done. We'll see how it turns out. :) Hopefully it's this simple.
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Rank: Polio Power!
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So I D/Led and installed the newest drivers. Got the same error on turning on my computer. Did the weird scrambled pixel bars across my screen until the windows load screen showed up.
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That card is dying. Unless it is under warranty, I do not think there is anything you will be able to do, short of getting out a soldering iron and wiring diagram. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
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Rank: Polio Power!
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Oopsie wrote:That card is dying. Unless it is under warranty, I do not think there is anything you will be able to do, short of getting out a soldering iron and wiring diagram. In which case I go "Bluh?" It's a 5-yr-old card. I sincerely doubt it's got warranty left. I'll start shopping around for a cheapy. It seems to run WoW without a problem..but WoW can be run on a toaster I think. It spazzed out the moment I loaded TF2. I might also just upgrade my RAM while I'm at it and pray this all holds me over until I can afford a new comp.
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Rank: Fuckstick
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RichardAwesome wrote:So I D/Led and installed the newest drivers. Got the same error on turning on my computer. Did the weird scrambled pixel bars across my screen until the windows load screen showed up.
Dammit.
If you are going to build a new computer once ou get some more cash, hook yourself up with a nice crd now (PCI Express X16, if possible), but don't get anything else. If your computer is 5 years old thn there is no way that the RAM you put in that can be interchangeable with a new system. Getting RAM later will save you some cash now.
I *had* a spare video card over herethat I would have sent you, but one of these damn thieving hippies stole it. 
I'll look for another spare around here, but don't hold your breath, I don't think I have anything on hand. TEAM APARTMENT: No one rocks quite as hard as we do. Dick Cheney's Mechanical Heart wrote:the flying spaghetti monster skullfucked Bob's corpse. Lead Salad wrote:My ePenis is 10 feet long! WDF wrote:A pair in douchbaggery.
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Rank: Fuckstick
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Sadly, if it is doing graphical errors during posting, no drivers or software can help it. It might limp along like that for years, or the magic smoke could come out tomorrow. Sorry for the bad news. I would look at the card and see if there are some swollen capacitors. It won't help anything, but that would confirm hardware damage. I had a couple of NEW cards that did that to me and had to send them back and get one from a different manufacturer. Apparently there was a bad batch of the one that did it to me. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
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Rank: Polio Power!
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Oopsie wrote:Sadly, if it is doing graphical errors during posting, no drivers or software can help it. It might limp along like that for years, or the magic smoke could come out tomorrow. Sorry for the bad news. I would look at the card and see if there are some swollen capacitors. It won't help anything, but that would confirm hardware damage.
I had a couple of NEW cards that did that to me and had to send them back and get one from a different manufacturer. Apparently there was a bad batch of the one that did it to me. delta62 wrote:
RichardAwesome wrote:So I D/Led and installed the newest drivers. Got the same error on turning on my computer. Did the weird scrambled pixel bars across my screen until the windows load screen showed up.
Dammit.
If you are going to build a new computer once ou get some more cash, hook yourself up with a nice crd now (PCI Express X16, if possible), but don't get anything else. If your computer is 5 years old thn there is no way that the RAM you put in that can be interchangeable with a new system. Getting RAM later will save you some cash now.
I *had* a spare video card over herethat I would have sent you, but one of these damn thieving hippies stole it.
I'll look for another spare around here, but don't hold your breath, I don't think I have anything on hand.
:) Thanks for all your help guys. Thankfully I got some spare cash available for a quick v-card pick up now, so I'm just gonna do it and not mess around. lol Oddly enough, it may actually be an upgrade, the one you suggested I pick up, Delta.
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you should considering administering it the last rites. yeah, i'm a cranky 'oul fucker. deal with it.
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Just make sure you get the right kind. If your motherboard's 5 years old it may still have an AGP graphics slot, in which case a PCIe card won't fit. That said, definitely go cheap if you need an AGP since the moment you upgrade to PCIe, your new card will be obsolete. Upgrading the motherboard from the AGP generation to the PCIe generation is a costly jump; you'll likely need to get a new video card, new memory, and new CPU at the same time. You'll also need to make sure it has enough IDE connectors to accomodate any older drives you still have. With the move from IDE to SATA, some newer motherboards come with a pretty limited support for IDE.
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Rikaelus wrote:Just make sure you get the right kind. If your motherboard's 5 years old it may still have an AGP graphics slot, in which case a PCIe card won't fit. That said, definitely go cheap if you need an AGP since the moment you upgrade to PCIe, your new card will be obsolete.
Upgrading the motherboard from the AGP generation to the PCIe generation is a costly jump; you'll likely need to get a new video card, new memory, and new CPU at the same time. You'll also need to make sure it has enough IDE connectors to accomodate any older drives you still have. With the move from IDE to SATA, some newer motherboards come with a pretty limited support for IDE. Well, here's hoping the card I ordered fits or it's gonna suck. My graphics card basically died finally. The entire screen is artifacts, so much so, I can't read what I type. So, it's no computer until I get the card and attempt to install it. Just hoping it's fine.
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Rank: Polio Power!
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lol Yeah the video card wasn't compatible to my motherboard. Gonna just search for an old Radeon 9800 to replace it with. Not even sure what "recent" video cards would even work with my PC now.
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