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Computer gone kaput

rowdypixel

rowdypixel

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 1, 2008
Messages
327
Long descriptive story here. If you just want the cliffs, go to the bottom.

I was in the middle of playing a game, and I had just tried to switch servers when the entire game froze. No biggie, I thought. I'll just restart the game and go on my merry way. Of course, this didn't work out. I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del a few times, but I couldn't get the Task Manager to show up, all I saw was a black screen. After waiting awhile, I managed to get the BSOD telling me that Windows couldn't recover from a video card driver crash. When I restarted, I could tell something was off. Instead of the normal English text, everything was in jibberish. It wasn't a foreign language, it was pure gobbledygook. This didn't seem to be a good sign, but I let the computer continue booting. I could never get to the login screen. It should show me the cursor, then (presumably) the video card driver would crash again, and I would be stuck doing a hard restart on my computer.

I restarted into Safe Mode and uninstalled the video card driver. When I booted back into Windows it would tell me it found new hardware, install a driver, and ask me to restart. Installing this driver make the problems return again, so I went back to Safe Mode and uninstalled the driver again. This time, instead of installing the driver that Windows wanted to, I downloaded and installed the drivers from ATI's site, and just as the installer asked, I restarted.

No dice. The same problem returned. I could use my computer in one of two ways: In safe mode, or without a proper video card driver. Frustrating, but I had a recent backup so I figured I would just reinstall windows and everything would be hunky dory. I popped in the Windows 7 RC CD and began the installation. Format hard drive...check. Copying and expanding files...check. Installing feature and updates...check. Completing installation...BZZRT! Houston, we have a problem. After it restarts so it can boot from the hard drive to complete the installation, I get a BSOD again. It's still whining about the dadgum video card driver, only this time I haven't even finished installing Windows.

At this point, I was quite annoyed. I figured the one thing I could do was remove the overclock on my processor (the only overclock on my system). I wasn't sure what that could be doing to the video card, but it couldn't hurt. As expected however, this made no change. I still can't get Windows to install.


My theory so far is that somehow the video card overheated, and might need to be replaced. I don't know exactly how. When monitoring my temps, I've never seen them go above 75C, which should be plenty cool for the HD4830 I have in my rig.

Cliffs:
- Video card driver crashed
- BIOS shows jibberish
- Can't boot into Windows
- Can't reinstall Windows
- HELP!
 
It defends sounds like the video card did break, it is definitely hardware related, only other option I believe is the motherboard itself. I would go find a video card to test the theory.

75C still sounds ridiculous though, even if it can.
 
Well, I've contacted Sapphire support, and they'll let me get a replacement under the warranty. As soon as I can get a second card and verify the problem, I'll do that.
 
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