error message on sony vaio computer

[TechStuey05]

Hi about 2.5 years ago I upgraded the video card on my sony vaio from a nvidia 5200 to a more powerful ati card. Anyways it started shutting down by itself. I should've realized back then that it was a power supply issue. I replaced it with like 3 other cards with the same problem including adding a more powerful fan.

about 2 months ago I decided to purchase from amazon and install myself an nvidia 5200 video card (different brand) since I couldn't find the original one cause I dont know what it looks like since I have a couple nvidia cards.

I'm pretty much a newb and I didn't hook up the power to the hardrive properly when I installed the nvidia 5200 in the computer. I got someking of boot error. Anyways I finally figured it out and fixed it. the computer went on fine but the screen looked like it was shimmering.

And when I went into device manager it showed a question mark for the video card. it detected the video card but the drivers on the cd that it came with didn't install properly or something. Anyways I fixed the problem (about a week later) by downloading the latest drivers from nvidia and the question marks whent away.

the problem that I had or still have is that i get an error message sometimes when restarting or sometimes random saying that Run a dll as an app has encountered an error and needs to close. It was very annoying. about a month later I decided to look into msconfig and noticed that some ati drivers and apps were set to startup so I unchecked them.

I also uninstalled the ati controlle center, all drivers and everything associated with ati. Anyways I haven't gotten the message yet but I am not sure what do and I'm very worried that I might have damaged the mother board when I installed the nvidia fx 5200 because I yanked out the ati video card pretty hard since it was kinda stuck.

How can I check to see if any hardware in my computer was damaged? Should I perform a system format if I See the error message again. was I seeing an error message because the mother board was damaged. any help from you guys is greatly appreciated

 

[KennyT]

take the card out and take a picture. put the card back in then post it here.

 

[TechStuey05]

take the card out and take a picture. put the card back in then post it here.

Thanks for the quick response. Could you be alittle more specific as to which card that I should take a picture of. Do you mean the one in the computer? thanks, Stu

 

[KennyT]

yeah the video card. what i want you to photograph is the slot itself to make sure it isnt pulled loose or broken in any way. but odds are if the computer works right now just leave it alone

 

[TheMostWantedPolishTwin]

have you ever reinstalled OS eversince you got this lappy?

 

[TechStuey05]

have you ever reinstalled OS eversince you got this lappy?

Hi, sorry I'm alittle confused on what your trying to say. if you mean a laptop, I use a desktop.

 

[TechStuey05]

Hi, I went into msconfig and found that ati drivers, etc was set to startup with my computer soo I unchecked them and uninstalled everything on the computer that hadto do with ati. The video card that I have in my computer now is an nvidia 5200, soo that must be the reason of why I was getting that error message cause I havent had it since but I'm worried that it's going to come back. I really hate to perform a system format. How can I tell if my motherboard was damaged? would the computer not be able to boot up? thanks alot for your help, Stu