DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1181
Registered: 09-13-2003
IP: Logged

I hope this is the right place for this, being wholely computer related, but if it's not then please feel free to move it.

I just spent two hours dealing with a problem I honestly thought was impossible to encounter. Before I begin, here are some computer specs for you:

Computer 1
AMD XP2000 1.66GHz, 256MB RAM
ATI Radeon7200AGP 250MHz, 64MB RAM
Windows XP Pro, Service Pack 1

Computer 2
Pentium 166MHz, 32MB RAM
S3 Stealth 64, 2MB RAM
Windows 98 SE, fresh install

Computer 1 is my personal computer, computer 2 is a system I spent all day building for a friend. After visiting all six of my spare monitors, I discovered they were either broken, CGA, or only worked in 640x480x16 and were thus useless. The obvious choice was to take the monitor from my own computer and use it, since it can handle just about anything.

So I started up my playlist of Red vs Blue in BSPlayer, unplugged the video cable from my Radeon, then I unplugged the power cable, and I took the monitor in to the next room, with the dulset comedy of RvsB in the background.

I used the monitor to do my Win98SE install on the other machine, but for some reason it wasn't seeing my network so I decided to haul my monitor back over to my own computer and see if I could find the new computer. I plugged in the power, then plugged the video cable in, but all I could see was a whole lot of pulsing black. After a while, the monitor just gave up and went to "no signal here, sucker" mode.

I killed the power, since I couldn't see anything in order to shut the computer down normally, and when it started back up it promptly failed to boot, dumping me out to the menu:

Safe mode
Safe mode with Networking
Safe mode with Command Prompt

Last Known Good Configuration

Continue

I went to Safe mode and did a system restore to about a week ago, rebooted, and the same thing happened. It turns out I was getting a draw error from the Radeon7200 for some reason. It literally stopped working while the computer was running, and wasn't showing any signs of recovering.

So I uninstalled the video card and rebooted, and WinXP found the card and reinstalled it. Things looked okay. Then I tried changing screen resolutions and it bombed out again, but at least XP recovered from the error and let me shut down gracefully. I decided to take this opportunity to uninstall the video card again, and instead of rebooting I just shut down.

At this point I removed the Radeon from the system entirely, and replaced it with my other personal computer's NVidia TNT Riva 2 16MB RAM video card. XP booted up in my favoured 1024x768x32bit mode, but since it's a much slower card that only has 16MB RAM it ran very slowly and couldn't do a lot of stuff.

Then I uninstalled the "new" card and shut down again, swapped the Radeon back in and rebooted, and was a little taken aback when it appeared in 640x480x16. Windows asked if I wanted it to automatically correct my resolution and depth, and I politely said yes. I was taken to 800x600x32bit mode. After about a minute, the friendly "I installed hardware and didn't explode" sound played, and I knew XP had installed my Radeon... again.

I cautiously switch my resolution back to 1024x768x32bit and crossed my fingers, then uncrossed them to press the Apply button, and waited for the worst. Fortunately, the worst didn't come, as the resolution changed exactly the way it was supposed to, and now everything is fine again except for a couple icons that loaded in 16 colour mode and haven't changed back yet.

So the problem has been "fixed," though I have no earthly idea what caused it. Has anyone here ever encountered anything remotely resembling this? Any idea what might have caused it? Any help is appreciated, I really sort of want to find out what happened here today.

____________________________
Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

Scott
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 578
Registered: 02-12-2003
IP: Logged

Maybe the Raedon is overheating? You removed it which would have given it the chance to cool down. Can't think of any other thing that could cause the problem.

wackhead_uk
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 352
Registered: 06-21-2004
IP: Logged

Well, I can only think that the card wasn't properly pushed into the board. But I doubt someone who built a computer would forget to do that, so I would have to agree with the overheating thing.