What's wrong with this PC?

[.....]

Hello chaps,

My old Dell PC seems to have gone kaput. It starts to boot, shows the Windows XP loading screen, then it goes white with some black fading in from the edges. Has my graphics card died?

Vid below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDX3LfcPR4k

Thanks.

[el_oso]

that looks quite odd.
download a live version of linux (ubuntu has a good live version) and burn to a disc or install to a USB memory stick. when you boot the pc, press either f2, f8 or f12 (usually f12 to go into boot options on a dell) and boot from the CD or USB key. if it boots, then probably a windows XP problem
____________________
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[.....]

Good thinking, will try that now.

[chrisw]

Had that on a couple of laptops but not desktops.

Laptops it's been the panel which has gone rather than the graphics card. Can you borrow another monitor to test with?

[.....]

I have another monitor but it has a VGA connector and not a DVI. Would probably be able to borrow one from somewhere.

Edit: Just seen you can get adaptors.

[iCraig]

Definitely looks like a panel problem rather than a PC hardware issue.

[Frost]

I doubt that's a monitor problem. It seems to fail epicly as soon as your graphics card attempts something greater than an 8 bit image. Try booting to command line / linux / BIOS and leaving it for a bit. If the monitor doesn't crap out then you know it's fine.
Might be graphics card, might be motherboard.

[.....]

Turns out it was a corrupted video driver, I think. I did a XP repair installation and it was popping up errors related to the graphics drivers. It sort of repaired it and eventually booted after a couple of tries. Reinstalled the drivers and all seems OK.

Thanks for your help.

[...]

I think what's happening here is your PC is outputting a signal your monitor can't handle.

This exact problem happened on my old PC and PS3 at my mums when connected to a 1080i only tv. If I set it to anything other than 1080i, I'd get the issue your video shows.

Press F8 during startup, select "safe mode" and remove your graphics driver. Windows should then use a generic driver, thus resetting your resolution. Boot up normally, and reinstall drivers for your graphics card.

I'm 95% sure this is the problem.

Edit: Turns out I skipped over the "issue is fixed" post.

Feel free to insult me.

[Frost]

If in doubt, the default windows drivers are reliable, but not hugely fast.

[G]

A bit late, but if you press F8 as windows is just starting, you can select 'vga mode', which I believe uses the generic vga driver and is a good first call for video problems.

[Syris the Indomitable]

Well your may need a fresh install of windows or repaire the O/S
as well as a new graphics driver for you card.



If you have the original CD of your operating system you can go into BIOS. Upon boot up keep pressing , F8 , F10or F11.
Change boot from Hard drive to CD>F10 to save changes then Insert the CD.
You will then need to install the hard drive controller driver as well as the Intel chip-set driver/Mother board drivers. Then you will need to install all the peripheral drivers. I.E Sound card and graphics card.

If you don't have the recovery disk.
https://www.ehow.com/how_4910631_download-windows-xp-recovery-disk.html


If you want to retrieve any files you Will need at least a 2 GIG pen drive and install linux mint 9 onto it.

Download and install Unetbootin: https://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ software, click drop down box and download Linux mint 9 to same place on pen drive, In the unetbooting GUI top java script box select the ISO you have just downloaded>OK>reboot.
You will now have an operating system that you can boot form your USB pen to access all you files.
Boot your computer press f2, f8, f10 or f11 to go into BIOS and tell BIOS to boot from external device, save changes.
Make sure the USB pen drive is plugged in.