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5449
9100 / ATI Radeon X300 SE problems with black screen flashes
Hi,
Problem I'm having is with my monitor flashing to a black screen for 4-5 seconds every time I do the following:
1) open an email message with an attachment in Outlook
(opening just the message, not the attachment)
2) creating pdf files.
This is a big annoyance and i am very unhappy with my ATI Radeon video card. Dell support could not solve the problem and said I would need more memory? Huh, its a 128mb card. My old pc with a 64 mb video card did not have this problem.
yes, i have current ATI drivers, etc. I've tried everything I can think of and no luck. Support spent hours reinstalling and installing the drivers...nothing.
Any suggestions? I think Dell should replace the card as this card stinks.
Below are the specs of my puter.
Dell Dimension 9100 Pentium® D Processor 820 with Dual Core Technology (2.80GHz, 800FSB)
SX820H
[221-8765]
Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs
1GB52
[311-5115]
Monitors 17 inch Ultrasharp™ 1704FPT Digital Flat Panel
1704FP
[320-4029]
Video Cards 128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon™ X300 SE
X300SE
[320-3914]
Hard Drives 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
250S
[341-1058]
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
WHXP
Problem I'm having is with my monitor flashing to a black screen for 4-5 seconds every time I do the following:
1) open an email message with an attachment in Outlook
(opening just the message, not the attachment)
2) creating pdf files.
This is a big annoyance and i am very unhappy with my ATI Radeon video card. Dell support could not solve the problem and said I would need more memory? Huh, its a 128mb card. My old pc with a 64 mb video card did not have this problem.
yes, i have current ATI drivers, etc. I've tried everything I can think of and no luck. Support spent hours reinstalling and installing the drivers...nothing.
Any suggestions? I think Dell should replace the card as this card stinks.
Below are the specs of my puter.
Dell Dimension 9100 Pentium® D Processor 820 with Dual Core Technology (2.80GHz, 800FSB)
SX820H
[221-8765]
Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs
1GB52
[311-5115]
Monitors 17 inch Ultrasharp™ 1704FPT Digital Flat Panel
1704FP
[320-4029]
Video Cards 128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon™ X300 SE
X300SE
[320-3914]
Hard Drives 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
250S
[341-1058]
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
WHXP
mccarthy001
683 Posts
0
May 30th, 2006 18:00
dgm --
You are correct that the problem has nothing to do with the amount of RAM on the video card. The X300 is a very low performer, but it is able to handle everyday PC use with no problems.
If the card were bad, we would expect to see problems with video display all over the place and not just during these two specific user actions. My thoughts go to your file type associations, which is where the hang up seems to be occuring. When you click on these files, Windows XP has to decide what program to use for viewing the file. You can explore more of this in My Computer --> Tools --> File Options tab --> File Types tab.
I would recommend scrolling down to .pdf in that list, and deleting the association with Adobe Reader. Then, direct it right away to the same -- back to .pdf associated with Adobe Reader. Restart and see if you get a different behavior. Let me know if you need help.
And finally, you can always check out the video card physically for bulged capacitors or browned connections.