K999 Posted February 29, 2008 Share Posted February 29, 2008 Desktop with Intel core 2 duo 6600. Video card: nvidia 7300 GS Dual booting vista and xp A few days ago while running vista my dreamscene background stopped working and I got message saying "display drivers not responding" and dreamscene was disabled. And as I restarted the screen started shaking during boot up sequence. I logged onto xp and there didn't appear to be any display issue there. But while running a particular program I noticed display issues in xp as well. The words don't show up properly unless I hover mouse over them and highlight them. The problem appears to be getting worse especially in vista where every 20 minutes or so few I get a blue screen displaying a lot of numbers and saying something about "video dump" and then the computer restarts. I googled this problem online and tried a number of solutions like updating display drivers or applying windows hotfix but none of the solutions have worked so far. And since this problem is occuring in two different operating systems, I have an uneasy feeling that this might be a hardware issue. Is that the case? The computer is only about a year old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitty Posted February 29, 2008 Share Posted February 29, 2008 Pop open your computer case (assuming this is a desktop) and see if your video card is fit into the slot correctly. The card might be overheating as well, so clean any dust out of its fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majin GeoDooD Posted March 1, 2008 Share Posted March 1, 2008 Buy a better video card Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K999 Posted March 1, 2008 Author Share Posted March 1, 2008 Pop open your computer case (assuming this is a desktop) and see if your video card is fit into the slot correctly. The card might be overheating as well, so clean any dust out of its fan. It didn't made any difference. Any other ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drack Posted March 1, 2008 Share Posted March 1, 2008 I once had a video card that spewed garbage on the screen from the moment I turned the computer on, and all text was wrong - even in DOS text would show up in the right places but be garbage instead of readable. It was just a bad card. I sent it back for a replacement of the exact same model and the replacement worked fine .. for a year, until that one broke too. It was a Leadtek branded Nvidia 6600GT. And for the record, I replaced THAT with a Sapphire branded ATi Radeon X800 Pro, which also broke after a year. Now running an eVGA branded NVidia 8800 GTS. Hasn't broken yet, and I'm about a week away from the magical 1-year mark where the warranties expire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Effef Posted March 1, 2008 Share Posted March 1, 2008 Video cards and their drivers are volatile little beasts. Sometimes one or both of them break for no apparent reason. I suggest doing a driver reinstall, and if that does not work try another card and see if things work out better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K999 Posted March 2, 2008 Author Share Posted March 2, 2008 All right, I'll get a card from circuit city and see if it changes anything. I don't know anything about what would be a good card to buy. I don't play games on pc but I do watch hd videos. What would be a good card to buy at around $150 range? Would this one be ok? http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/eVGA-e-GeForce-512MB-8600GT-Video-Card-512-P2-N757-TR/sem/rpsm/oid/190430/catOid/-13043/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhsu Posted March 2, 2008 Share Posted March 2, 2008 I would go for a GeForce 8800GS or an ATI HD 3850. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K999 Posted March 2, 2008 Author Share Posted March 2, 2008 I would go for a GeForce 8800GS or an ATI HD 3850. So would something like the following be ok? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150276 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitty Posted March 2, 2008 Share Posted March 2, 2008 Remember to make sure the card is compatible with your system setup. And I think that should be fine for your movies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K999 Posted March 2, 2008 Author Share Posted March 2, 2008 Remember to make sure the card is compatible with your system setup. And I think that should be fine for your movies. Oh man, I don't want this to become too expensive and complicated. Can you guide me about what to check for to make sure this would be compatible with my system. I know power supply can be an issue, and I think I have 450W of power supply. What else do I need to look for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhsu Posted March 2, 2008 Share Posted March 2, 2008 The thing that trips most people up is having an AGP slot when they need PCI-e for the newest cards. I don't think they even make an AGP 7300GS though, so you should be in the clear. Reading the reviews on that card, it seems the fan is extremely loud (I believe it's an overclocked version) which would be distracting especially if you mostly use it for watching movies, so in that case I would consider the HD 3850 instead. ATI also seems to have better HD decoding. THAT SAID, if you don't game on your PC, you can almost certainly find an adequate card for much much cheaper (even the 8500GT I have right now is HDCP compliant). I've personally done absolutely no research in that area, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K999 Posted March 2, 2008 Author Share Posted March 2, 2008 Well, I would like to future proof my PC, if there is such a thing. I remember my last PC being so underpowered, that it was unable to play .mkv files. Since the nvidia card is loud, would the following card be a good alternative? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121100 There are so many variations of this card on newegg and I don't really understand what makes one variation different enough from the other to warrant a difference of $50. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Effef Posted March 2, 2008 Share Posted March 2, 2008 So would something like the following be ok? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150276 You would be better off with a HD3850, since it has superior h.264 decoding abilities. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121100 Edit: Hivemind. You linked the exact one I did. Its fairly powerful, in terms of future proofing it is capable of playing anything out now at decent resolutions (at or under 1440x900). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhsu Posted March 2, 2008 Share Posted March 2, 2008 Not really sure if there's such a thing as futureproofing when it comes to video decoding, but if there is, the 3850 is probably a safe bet. Also here's an article I found because I'm OCD Sidenote: I would never recommend 8500GT to a gamer, but it's got some decent numbers and is $100 less than the 3850. Just sayin'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K999 Posted March 2, 2008 Author Share Posted March 2, 2008 Sidenote: I would never recommend 8500GT to a gamer, but it's got some decent numbers and is $100 less than the 3850. Just sayin'. Well, you guys are the experts here. I am willing to spend $150 because I see it as a one time purchase, so I might as well go for a good product rather than an "ok" one. But if I am not going to gain much by spending a $100 more then I won't. What would your advice be. Edit: Unfortunately, my video card does not think that now is the time for contemplation as blue video crash screens are becoming more frequent. So I ultimately decided upon ati 3850 and have ordered it for the sake of emergency. And I would like to express my gratitude towards Dhsu, CH, Falchion, and Drack without whom I would not have been able to make an informed decision. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhsu Posted March 2, 2008 Share Posted March 2, 2008 Actually I am not an expert in any way, shape, or form, but in terms of options, here's the way I see it. The HD 3850 is the safest option for futureproofing. It also seems to have slightly better decoding and post-processing. Downside is it's $170. The 8500GT is a great card for HD video but is crippled in every other aspect, which is to be expected at $70. I don't see any significant advances in video encoding in the near future that would render this card useless, but there's definitely no guarantee there. The 8600GT (DDR3 version) is a decent middle ground for $100...same hardware acceleration to help with HD decoding, but it has a little extra power if you want some insurance down the line. ATI's 2600XT is a similarly-priced alternative. I'm personally leaning towards the 8600GT, but since if you're actually relying on my opinion, I will recommend the HD 3850 to cover my butt. Also I've heard reports that the 8600GT's post-processing features aren't available on Windows XP, so you might want to take that into account as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitty Posted March 2, 2008 Share Posted March 2, 2008 I've never really looked into shopping around for video cards since I just bought an evga made 8800GTS without thinking about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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