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1086
February 2nd, 2004 20:00
Graphics card AND modem?
My Dimension 8200 is a little over 2 years old now (full spec below), and in that time it has never missed a beat. However, it has developed a strange couple of faults which have baffled me.
First boot-up of the day, dial-up, surf the net for about 5 mins, then I notice a 1" square block around the pointer where the display has gone a bit screwy. Then the pointer locks up, followed by the machine shutting down and re-booting itself. During this boot, I notice the first screen which displays the Dell logo, has 1/2" red vertical lines across the screen. The next screen, the Windows XP one I think, has also gone a bit screwy. Once the desk top has loaded, all is fine for about a minute, and then the shut-down / re-boot process starts over again. Each time it is different, sometimes it boots up cleanly, other times, the screen is a total graphics mess and the machine locks up. I tried doing a system restore to a week previous, no change.
Next I go inside, give it a clean out of dust and a look around, nothing untoward noted. Also re-set the graphics card in it’s AGP slot.
This time when re-booted, it appears to be fine, and I have around an hour of trouble free use. However the next day, the problem reappears exactly the same.
At this stage, I am obviously suspecting the graphics card. Though I can see no reason why it would only last such a short time. The machine is only used at home and I have never played any games on it, or used it for any video editing - the two jobs I assume would give the graphics card the hardest time.
Unfortunately I have been unable to test the card in another machine, but have since installed and old S4 PCI card, and the machine has functioned flawlessly since (graphics wise). Upon reinstalling my original graphics card, the problem came straight back again.
So, fairly content at having found the cause of the problem, albeit annoyed, I boot the machine back up on the old S4 PCi card, and all is fine.... until I dial-up and start surfing the net. After about 30 secs the modem disconnects and redials. Once connected, if I leave it doing nothing, no problem, but as soon as I start downloading a website, it disconnects again after about 30 secs.
So, to summarise, it appears I have a faulty graphics card AND modem? Yeah - I could go right ahead and replace them, but two devices failing one after another? Surely this is too much of a coincidence?
Any thoughts?
Many thanks in advance.
Andy
First boot-up of the day, dial-up, surf the net for about 5 mins, then I notice a 1" square block around the pointer where the display has gone a bit screwy. Then the pointer locks up, followed by the machine shutting down and re-booting itself. During this boot, I notice the first screen which displays the Dell logo, has 1/2" red vertical lines across the screen. The next screen, the Windows XP one I think, has also gone a bit screwy. Once the desk top has loaded, all is fine for about a minute, and then the shut-down / re-boot process starts over again. Each time it is different, sometimes it boots up cleanly, other times, the screen is a total graphics mess and the machine locks up. I tried doing a system restore to a week previous, no change.
Next I go inside, give it a clean out of dust and a look around, nothing untoward noted. Also re-set the graphics card in it’s AGP slot.
This time when re-booted, it appears to be fine, and I have around an hour of trouble free use. However the next day, the problem reappears exactly the same.
At this stage, I am obviously suspecting the graphics card. Though I can see no reason why it would only last such a short time. The machine is only used at home and I have never played any games on it, or used it for any video editing - the two jobs I assume would give the graphics card the hardest time.
Unfortunately I have been unable to test the card in another machine, but have since installed and old S4 PCI card, and the machine has functioned flawlessly since (graphics wise). Upon reinstalling my original graphics card, the problem came straight back again.
So, fairly content at having found the cause of the problem, albeit annoyed, I boot the machine back up on the old S4 PCi card, and all is fine.... until I dial-up and start surfing the net. After about 30 secs the modem disconnects and redials. Once connected, if I leave it doing nothing, no problem, but as soon as I start downloading a website, it disconnects again after about 30 secs.
So, to summarise, it appears I have a faulty graphics card AND modem? Yeah - I could go right ahead and replace them, but two devices failing one after another? Surely this is too much of a coincidence?
Any thoughts?
Many thanks in advance.
Andy
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andy p
5 Posts
0
February 2nd, 2004 21:00
Here's the spec:-
Dell Dimension 8200
Processor Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.00GHz
Processor Speed 1.95 GHz
Memory (RAM) 1024 MB
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Operating System Version 5.1.2600
Nvidia GeForce 3 64Mb Ti500 AGP x2 Graphics Card
Conexant HSF V92 56K RTAD Speakerphone PCI Modem
DELL-Donald K
2 Intern
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4K Posts
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February 3rd, 2004 00:00
andy p
5 Posts
0
February 20th, 2004 09:00
I’m still not convinced that the root cause of this problem is the graphics card, especially seeing as the PCI modem has died as well. I have also since discovered that with the failing graphics card installed, and a clean boot is obtained, after the few minutes the machine runs before re-booting itself, the graphics card gets extremely hot (it has a fan on the processor). All this leads me to suspect the root cause is actually a power supply issue.
Currently have an old serial external modem, and this functions just fine.
Any thoughts / experiences?
Many thanks in advance.
Andy P.