Is My Video Card Causing the Monitor to Flash?

HELPMEPLEASEHELPMEPLEASE
edited November 2006 in Hardware
I've been dealing with this problem for too long now. I have one computer dead, and one that cannot run the video card from the other. Previously I had a factory HP computer... it's been over a year now since it's lived, so I cannot remember the specs. Anywhore, I was running an Nvidia GeForce 4 something-or-other. It ran fine for about a year or two. Ran perfectly. No problems, whatsoever. After a while, my screen would flash black here and there while playing a game. I thought it was no big deal. Restarted a number of times, and it was fine. Eventually, it got worse and worse. I would start the computer, and the 'flashing' would get increasingly more violent, to the point where the monitor would actually turn off and back on just by moving the mouse. So I started updating drivers, took out the chip, carefully cleaned it, reinstalled it, etc. I even deleted and reinstalled the drivers. After a good while, I gave up, took out the card, re-upped my stock vid. card, and started in safe mode. No problems at all. The stock card is too ****ty to run games, so my computer was useless to me. Here's the bomb: when I uninstalled the driver again, and reinstalled it, put the card back in, and tried loading my computer, It wouldn't turn on. The tower would hum, the lights would come on, but as far as my monitor was concerned, nobody was home. Even my stock card **** out on me.

I tried getting help during the duration of the problem, but nobody could help me, as their suggestions were things I'd had tried initially.

Now I have a new computer.
Systemax_A0815
Intel Celeron 4
2.93 GHz
(2) 514DDR RAM cards
Windows XP Home
It's a (gAy)OL optimized one, so it's much weaker than dead-head in my closet.

So here's the thing- I put the GeForce in my newer computer as a test... if it ran fine, I'd be happy, if not I wouldn't be surprised. The same problem occurred. It started, it flashed, and eventually moving the mouse made it flash so bad that my computer restarted. I didn't want to stress my tower any more so I took the card out. This may be due to the fact that I didn't download a driver beforehand, but that's simply because on gAyOL dialup, a 40 meg file would take a number of days to finish. Still, the video card seemed to work (hence my thoughts that my tower might have an Nvidia driver I'm unaware of?), but with the same problems it had during the later weeks of my old tower. Has my video card eaten ****? Does it NEED a driver? Should I really spend my hard-earned money to replace this card, or would I encounter the same problems as I did with both computers?

I've been trying to solve this problem forEVER and it's really starting to piss me off.
Thanks be to all who help.

Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited November 2006
    Do you have access to a known, good video card that you could test in the computer(s)? It would stand to reason that if the same component has the same problem in two different computers, the problem is not with the computers. Windows XP Home should natively have the correct drivers for your video card, so I don't drivers would account for the flashing problems.

    The latest computer in which you've tried the GF4 - does it have onboard (on the motherboard, not video card) graphics? If so, did you turn the onboard graphics off in the BIOS?
  • HELPMEPLEASEHELPMEPLEASE
    edited November 2006
    Leonardo wrote:
    Do you have access to a known, good video card that you could test in the computer(s)?
    Negative, ghostrider. I'm planning on spending some money on a cheap one, to further experiment, but not if I can get the problem fixed without.
    Leonardo wrote:
    It would stand to reason that if the same component has the same problem in two different computers, the problem is not with the computers. Windows XP Home should natively have the correct drivers for your video card, so I don't drivers would account for the flashing problems.
    That's exactly what I thought...
    Leonardo wrote:
    The latest computer in which you've tried the GF4 - does it have onboard (on the motherboard, not video card) graphics?
    Yes, it does... SiS 661FX - (my morning **** has more "oomph" behind it.)
    Leonardo wrote:
    Did you turn the onboard graphics off in the BIOS?
    Hmm... I've been reading about possible solutions nonstop these last few days, and in all my experience with computers, BIOS for some reason is new to me. I have no clue how to access BIOS, or change any functions pertaining to such. Any advice?
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