The strange red lines of doom? PC unuseable

TheprincipalTheprincipal
edited June 2008 in Hardware
So, im new to the site, but from what ive seen elswhere, it helps to be as specific as possible, so ill do my best! (and yes my computer is unsusable at the present time due to this issue)

it started when i noticed my graphics were acting strangly when i was doing some gaming, so my first guess was to check for a video driver update. Sure enough, there was a new driver, i downloaded it and did that whole deal, and came to the part where i needed to restart my computer to finish the instal. So i restarted my computer, but when the computer finished loading windows, it isntantly blue screened out and restarted itself. Also interestingly enough, there are now these horizontal red lines on my monitor made of of boxes (the lines are ascending left to right). After atempting to reboot in normal mode and trying the option "load last working configuration" with nothing but blue screen resets, i booted up in safe mode to get rid of the driver i jsut installed. so in safe mode, i completly unintalledmy GFX card, and then reinstalled the GFX drivers from the manufacturer's CD that came with my card. Restarted the computer, and there was no change. so i went into safe mode again, uninstalled the GFX card again, and started my computer in normal mode to attempt to attempt to get the computer to automatically recognize the card to install it. it did, installed the card, reset the computer, and surprise surprise, blue screen reset again.

i figured that this was some sort of software problem, and my PC was do for a clean wipe anyways, i went to reformat. popped my windows disk in there, but it wouldn't boot on it (yes i went into the BIOS and told it to boot from CD). i tested the disk on two other computers (the windows disk) and it works fine. i Also went to try out this windows ahrdware diagnostic software i got from microsoft, but it requires booting onto the disk u make through that, and i cant boot onto that disk either.

anyways, i realise theres alot of reading here, but ive spent days wrking on this problem, and my computer is unusable as it sits :(

any ideas what to do next?

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited June 2008
    I theorize that you have a dying video card. Replace it with something cheap from a store, and take it back if that doesn't work.
  • TheprincipalTheprincipal
    edited June 2008
    if it helps, this is my setup:
    Nvidia XFX 8600 GT GFX card
    MSI mobo
    intel core 2 duo @ 2.6 ghz
    2 GB OCZ DDR2 Ram
    Western Digitital 250g SATA HDD
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited June 2008
    Some CD-ROM drives have some troubles being a boot-device. My next step, if I were in your shoes, would be to try to boot from a different CD-ROM drive.

    If you finally get it to reformat, and the problem persists, then get a new video card, as Thrax suggested.

    At this point, you should reformat either way, so I'd try to get that worked out first.
  • TheprincipalTheprincipal
    edited June 2008
    so CB, when you say try to boot the CD using a different drive, if i do not have one should i take one from another computer and just try it out? and would it matter that i have already reformatted my computer twice using this CD drive, but most of the components are new?
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited June 2008
    You've used this drive as a boot-device before? Have you changed the motherboard since then? have you tripple-checked your BIOS boot order?

    What does it do instead of boot from the drive? Does it try to read, and fail, or does it skip attempting to even access the CD-ROM drive durring boot?
  • TheprincipalTheprincipal
    edited June 2008
    yes i have used this drive to boot from before, but i have changed my mobo since then. i definatly triple checked the boot order in the BIOS, its default set to first boot on floppy (which doesn't exist), second on hard drive, third on CD. i changed it to first CD, second hard drive, third CD, and also 1, 2, and 3 all on CD.

    When it attempts to boot on the CD, it starts loading and you can here the CD being read, but then it just stops on a black screen with the cursor thing flashing on the top left (the thing that makes it look like u can type text in, not sure what to call it), and ofcourse, the ascending red lines comprised of boxes.

    also, when the first boot device is set to CD and the second to HDD, it does not fail to boot on CD and continue on to HDD, it will just freeze on the black screen.
  • TheprincipalTheprincipal
    edited June 2008
    alright, looks like the problem is solved!
    i got another CD drive from another computer, and hooked it up with my machine, and it let me boot onto the windows CD, from there i was able to reformatt no problem. the crazy red line problem still persisted, which means it had to be hardware related. so i went down to best buy (they let u return GFX cards even when they have been openend) and grabbed the cheapest card i could find, hooked it up and presto, it looks fine again.

    so, moral of the story is, thanks guys for suggesting i try a different CD drive, and try swapping out cards, it wrked!
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