Same old issue with video

[Getback]

Just restored my computer for the 3rd or 4th time. I've been having video problems forever it seems. Last night was the final straw. There was minor warping that seemed to grow worse.

It started with each upgrade Nvidia did. After each driver upgrade I would turn the computer off for the night. The next day the system would ask if I wanted to do a repair. I tried repairing several times but nothing ever was repaired. So I would just start normally. Then slowly the video would degrade. I couldn't hit squat.

Enough is enough, I ordered a new AMD card that may be here tomorrow. I'm just sick of fighting it.

Hopefully that will fix it. While I have it apart I'll install the sound card I've had for about 3 weeks. I'll also look for any motherboard damage just to cover any other possibilities.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Just restored my computer for the 3rd or 4th time. I've been having video problems forever it seems. Last night was the final straw. There was minor warping that seemed to grow worse.

It started with each upgrade Nvidia did. After each driver upgrade I would turn the computer off for the night. The next day the system would ask if I wanted to do a repair. I tried repairing several times but nothing ever was repaired. So I would just start normally. Then slowly the video would degrade. I couldn't hit squat.

Enough is enough, I ordered a new AMD card that may be here tomorrow. I'm just sick of fighting it.

Hopefully that will fix it. While I have it apart I'll install the sound card I've had for about 3 weeks. I'll also look for any motherboard damage just to cover any other possibilities.

If you had to 'repair' something it sounds more like OS corruption through hard drive failure.

[save]

Do a chkdsk c:  /F from command prompt, and it will repair damaged files if its possible.

[Skuzzy]

Are there any other hard drives in the computer with Windows XP on it?  That can cause the continuous repair at boot time issue.

If not, then there is something else going on, not related to NVidia.  Memory corruption, hard drive issues or other conflicts in the hardware.

Are you letting NVidia or Microsoft update download and install new drivers?

If you are letting Microsoft do it, you will have just as many problems with AMD/ATI as you have with NVidia.  I would not trust an update utility to update a video card driver.  There are simply too many things which an go horribly wrong.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

If you are letting Microsoft do it, you will have just as many problems with AMD/ATI as you have with NVidia.  I would not trust an update utility to update a video card driver.  There are simply too many things which an go horribly wrong.

I recently had to use driver cleaner and reinstall my graphics drivers because I forgot to remove the 'update drivers' tag from the new Windows 10 installation. When Windows update pushed the driver in it was instant slideshow and crashes.

Actually I let the driver update happen because I was hoping they would have some unreleased Win10 driver version in the mix - but chaos resulted.

[ImADot]

Edited, because I'm a numpty...

[Skuzzy]

I recently had to use driver cleaner and reinstall my graphics drivers because I forgot to remove the 'update drivers' tag from the new Windows 10 installation. When Windows update pushed the driver in it was instant slideshow and crashes.

Actually I let the driver update happen because I was hoping they would have some unreleased Win10 driver version in the mix - but chaos resulted.

I have never seen anything good from Microsoft updating a video card driver.  It always results in a bad mess.

It would not surprise me if we have not all been bitten by that, at least once.  How do you think I learned?

[Getback]

Are there any other hard drives in the computer with Windows XP on it?  That can cause the continuous repair at boot time issue.

If not, then there is something else going on, not related to NVidia.  Memory corruption, hard drive issues or other conflicts in the hardware.

Are you letting NVidia or Microsoft update download and install new drivers?

If you are letting Microsoft do it, you will have just as many problems with AMD/ATI as you have with NVidia.  I would not trust an update utility to update a video card driver.  There are simply too many things which an go horribly wrong.

Funny you should mention memory. I ran a memory test in BIOS and it failed. What does that mean? When I looked at my total physical memory it it said 8 gb which is what I have installed. Any thoughts?

[Drane]

It sounds like you may have a hardware failure or some motherboard settings may need adjusted to better match the hardware you have. Either one of these could easily corrupt your operating system.

Can you attach a dxdiag report for Skuzzy to look at?

Memtest86 works great to test you system for memory errors.

[Getback]

It sounds like you may have a hardware failure or some motherboard settings may need adjusted to better match the hardware you have. Either one of these could easily corrupt your operating system.

Can you attach a dxdiag report for Skuzzy to look at?

Memtest86 works great to test you system for memory errors.

Well I thought I had 8 gb of memory but I pulled one out and it was 8 gb so I had 16 gigs total. One is bad! Darn me!

[Rich46yo]

Well I thought I had 8 gb of memory but I pulled one out and it was 8 gb so I had 16 gigs total. One is bad! Darn me!

I wish I'd seen this thread sooner. I had the very same problem with a corrupted memory stick last year. Listen does your MB require memory sticks to be in certain slots when using a certain amount of sticks? That could be of issue too, tho its probably just bad memory. I would never again mix different memory sticks, even if all the difference was different sizes in gigs. Bad RAM is the most often problem and the last thing we usually think about.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Well I thought I had 8 gb of memory but I pulled one out and it was 8 gb so I had 16 gigs total. One is bad! Darn me!

Before you condemn it as bad, try to reseat the stick. Some ram sticks need incredibly hard push before they slide in all the way to the bottom. It's very easy to install them half way. I've had some sticks bend from the middle so that the retaining clips locked but the stick wasn't still seated properly.

[Getback]

Thanks everyone! I feel kind of like a dweeb. I should have checked this earlier. New memory is on the way.