[Micky C]

There are a lot of tech oriented guys here so hopefully someone knows what's going on.

About a week or so ago, my computer suddenly froze, with some of the colours turning funny. I was forced to do a hard restart, which seemed to fix it, then it did it again about half an hour later. Both times I was in mapster32 so I thought it was related to that and just updated mapster. Then several days later the same thing happened when I was testing out Serious Sam Revolution for the first time.

Today, when I switched on my computer, the funny colours were back and it's failing to boot up properly, and I have no idea what's going on. I tried googling the issue back when it started happening and there were a lot of threads about graphics card problems. I'm not sure if it's that, or another component failing, or possibly even a virus, idk.

Here are some specs:
Dell XPS 420 bought January 2009 (so a bit over 5 years old, a good run).
nVideo Geforce 9800 GT
8gb DDR3 ram (upgraded about a year ago or something like that).
Intel quad core 2.33 ghz
Windows 7 64 bit.

I took some photos of the screen at various points of the attempted boot up in case it sheds some light on the issue. Note I'm not a super tech-savvy person. My brother had set everything up before leaving the country for example. I'm in the middle of a system restore at the moment in the remote likelihood that it does any good, but I'm not holding my breath.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Tea Monster]

From what you've shown us, I'd say your graphics card is what's gone wrong.

How technical are you? Are you up for opening the case, or are you going to be taking it to a shop?

1. Have you updated your graphics card drivers recently, ie. just before this happened?
2. Has anything else happened with your display recently? Screen tearing, pixelating on playback, lots of fan noise when playing games, strange crashes when playing games?
3. Were you able to hear the fan on your graphics card before this happened, and now you can't?

[Micky C]

I can probably figure out how to replace the card myself. Haven't updated my drivers in a while.

There's been no odd behaviour other than what I mentioned in my first post. Looks like I'll be getting a new card then.

[Micky C]

In the time between me buying and installing a new graphics card (and I'm very busy this week...), is there anything I can do to get it up and running in the mean time?

[Tea Monster]

It could be that the card is just shagged. There is a small chance that it might be saveable though. Before you chuck it out, I'd do some checks first.

1. If you open the case, boot the machine up and visually check the card (the fan is usally facing down). Make sure the card's fan is actually turning. I had one similar to that and the fan packed up. I was able to replace it with a CPU fan and got another years use out of it.

2. Try taking the card out of the slot and then re-seating it. While you are doing that, double check all the power connectors on the card. Make sure they are all secure. After that, reboot and see if it's still playing up. It's possible for these to work loose over time.

3. Update your drivers - by this I mean uninstall the old ones first, then install new - and see if it still plays up.

[The Commander]

Can you upload the screenshots to something that's not shit. I can't seem to open photoshitbucket pictures in full screen so I can't read the blue screen error code. Use imgur.com man.

[Micky C]

Yeah the fan is running, resetting it didn't work, and I can't update my drivers if I can't boot up the computer can I?

I appreciate the help Tea Monster, and I've been meaning to get a new graphics card anyway.

If I simply remove the card will the comp more or less run ok by itself assuming I don't do anything graphically intensive?

[Mark]

edit: it seems you posted right before me

The on board video card should suffice for regular use. You may have to turn back on the onboard video from the BIOS settings.

OOPS. I just checked the BIOS settings on my XPS 420 and it seems there is no onboard video. Only the card. Sorry.

[Micky C]

Ouch, so it looks like I'm stuck using a macbook until I replace the card?

I also ran diagnostic and got this error if it makes any difference:

[The Commander]

 The Commander, on 11 May 2014 - 04:05 AM, said:

Can you upload the screenshots to something that's not shit. I can't seem to open photoshitbucket pictures in full screen so I can't read the blue screen error code. Use imgur.com man.

[Tea Monster]

What Mark. said.

Before you remove the card, restart it and make a note of what key it is to get into the bios to change your card settings

If you still want to try getting into the system, F8 on start to get to the boot menu, then choose 'Safe Mode'. It will take a while to boot, with lots of white text scrolling up the screen, but unless something has gone really catastrophically wrong, you should be able to access the system and do a driver reinstall.

[Micky C]

Well I posted the full sized pic so you can read it without doing anything. My main comp just went out of commission, and I have 3 major projects due this week (which is a lot even for engineering standards). Changing my image host isn't exactly high on my priority list.

@Tea Monster, I'll probably just replace the card at this stage. It's an oldish card.

[Tea Monster]

It's odd that a Dell hasn't got an on-board vid. Is there a blue VGA connector in and amongst the USB connectors at the top of the case?
Like the blue connector.

If you can't get a full-on replacement, you should be able to get a cheap fill-in card from a second hand source, just to get things going. Depending on what you want it for, you may be able to run the rig in safe mode if it's just word processing. It will be crap, but you should be able to get some stuff done.

[Micky C]

I should be able to do all the work I need on my macbook or at uni until I get a replacement. I'll probably pick up a new nVidia GTX 660, it's just a matter of finding the time to go to the store.

[Forge]

your first error is for the video card/display driver, but your second error is for the optical/Hard drive

back up all your data, try resetting the bios to defaults, then run before it blows up

[Tea Monster]

Cool. If you need to get any files off the machine, try it in safe mode.

[Mark]

Make sure your power supply will handle the extra load of a newer card. IIRC some of those newer ones can be real energy hogs and require a connector directly from the power supply. Thats one of the reasons I'm still using the 9800 GTX+ in my machine.

[Micky C]

I don't think the 660 uses that much more than the 9800, so it should be ok. I'll just keep the computer off until it's fixed in case anything bad happens.

As for files, anything remotely important has always been in the cloud. Best decision I ever made

Is that optical drive error anything to worry about? I don't remember having any problems with it, then again I didn't use it that much.

Thanks again for everyone's comments, it feels good to know there are helpful people in the community

[Forge]

a quick search shows error 2000-0146 is for the optical drive
2000-0148 is for the hard drive

your dell support suggests removing and reseating the [hard] drive (connectors). re-run the diagnostic test. if the error persists your drive is about to bite it


i'm still wondering at the odd combination of errors you're having. Video display and hard drive.

could be that the video display is acting up because the hard drive is corrupted and the drivers are affected
two possible physical pieces of the computer seemingly unrelated are failing at the same time - the common factor between the two being the power supply unit

[Micky C]

What a coincidence since I was also thinking about replacing the hard drive too

It's only 500gb so pretty small by today's standards, and the rpm isn't that flash either.

The gpu and HD are the two lowest rated components according to my windows experience index. The processor seems to be holding up pretty well.

[Forge]

you might want to double-check your psu if you plan on upgrading your video card.
some of those comps came with a 375w stock

the minimum watt rate for the 9800 GT 400w
for the 660 gtx - 450w

[TerminX]

 Forge, on 11 May 2014 - 05:47 AM, said:

could be that the video display is acting up because the hard drive is corrupted and the drivers are affected
two possible physical pieces of the computer seemingly unrelated are failing at the same time - the common factor between the two being the power supply unit

Nah, it's happening in POST screens and during pre-boot Windows screens. The driver used to kick the thing into 1024x768 (I think 7/8 boot screens are full res like this... could be wrong) is pretty basic and in my experience if things are going bad this early on in the boot process, no amount of software tinkering is going to fix anything.

Anyway, Micky, you have a card known to develop defects due to "tin whiskers"... essentially, find someone with access to a solder reflow station or look up the procedure to bake the card in your oven on Google and you might be able to get a couple years more out of this currently broken thing.

Fun fact: what killed your card is the same thing that causes a lot of the problems you hear about in the news where some car with 100% electronic throttle and braking and everything else has careened out of control and caused some catastrophic accident. This is also a cause of pacemaker failure, orbiting satellite failure, and really a potential cause of failure of just about any electronics, especially as we move further and further away from the materials we have that are known to work and towards modern "eco-friendly" alternatives that haven't seen nearly the real world testing. That's fine for video cards and consumer hardware, but not so great for mission critical stuff you can't just go fix... seems to me like the environmental impact of building and launching an entire replacement satellite is probably a lot more than just going back to using lead based solder.

[Tea Monster]

Do you have a friend with an old card that they have upgraded from just to see if the rig runs OK without the current graphics card?

[Forge]

 TerminX, on 11 May 2014 - 07:05 AM, said:

in my experience if things are going bad this early on in the boot process, no amount of software tinkering is going to fix anything.

well alright. i was alluring to hardware failure
i was also going off some of the info in the OP that it was fine, started acting up, then just got progressively worse and worse
not very indicative of software issues without the actual physical sector on the hard drive where the drivers are located to start crapping out - i seen he had hard drive issues as well and drew an invisible line.
Just grasping at straws. The chances are pretty much zero that this is the problem. Especially considering that pre-boot system assessment screen looks all jacked-up with pink squares too.

interesting that there is a video AND hard drive issue at the same time

still wondering about the hard drive error. I wouldn't ignore it.

 Tea Monster, on 11 May 2014 - 07:55 AM, said:

Do you have a friend with an old card that they have upgraded from just to see if the rig runs OK without the current graphics card?

^this. especially before you go spend a bunch of money without knowing if it's the only issue.

[TerminX]

I don't necessarily think that's a hard drive issue, I think that they reuse the same failure codes across different tests. If you look in the background, behind the error, you'll see that this was ONLY the optical device test (or portion of a larger test). That kind of error could be down to simply removing the optical drive at some point to install a second hard drive, the test being programmed to suit the typical system configuration and not realizing it's been run on a system with no optical drive even installed, the optical drive actually being bad, etc. There are many possibilities, and I think any of them that would throw that kind of an error for the actual hard drive would prevent the thing from booting to Windows at all.

[Forge]

just going off the dell tech page
error 2000-0146 is for the optical drive
2000-0148 is for the hard drive

i'm not trying to be smarter than you about this stuff. i'd lose badly.

could be nothing, could be something. i'm just saying i wouldn't ignore it.

[Tea Monster]

I was thinking a possible mainboard issue if multiple devices are posting errors at the same time.

Either the mainboard failed, or when the graphics card went, it took either the slot or the board with it.

I've seen it where the machine behaves like crap and everyhing starts whining when one component dies. When you replace the duff part, everything is sweetness and light again. That's why I thought it was prudent to replace the card. If he does and it still posts errors, then we know it's not just that.

[Person of Color]

The 660 has dual PCI-E power connectors unlike the 9800GT. Hopefully the new card comes with a power adapter and the Dell PSU isn't a weak piece of shit.

[Forge]

 Tea Monster, on 11 May 2014 - 09:05 AM, said:

I was thinking a possible mainboard issue if multiple devices are posting errors at the same time.

Either the mainboard failed, or when the graphics card went, it took either the slot or the board with it.

^this
had what i thought was a video card failure just to find out the slot and half the output ports had burnt out

also had similar issues with psu's dying out where the computer would act funny, freeze, crash, work, lockup, finally get to the point where it acted like the comp was powered up and all the fans running, but refuse to boot.

[Person of Color]

It is a Dell after all.



"DUDE! You're getting a piece of shit!"

Also, XPS 420...lol.