What is wrong with my computer?

elevature

I was playing TF2 last night and the graphics went all weird and blocky. It was late so I turned it off and figured I'd deal with it today.

When I turned the computer on this morning, all of the text on the screen was garbled, as was the Windows loading screen, after which the screen went blank. I powered it off and on and it booted into Windows, but there is still something seriously wrong. I think it may be the video card but I am clueless about this sort of thing.

Here are some pictures. Sorry for the shitty quality, but I can't take screencaps so I had to take pictures of the screen:

Any suggestions? If it is the video card, what do I need to know to replace it? This is a pretty old computer, but I really can't afford a complete upgrade right now.

Wedge Biggs

Jiggle the video cable.

Mr Blonde

The video card may not be seated right either.

Wedge Biggs

Bowen

That looks mysteriously like a ram issue I used to have. Try replacing it.

Helloween

Whats been said really. Re-seat everything. It allows you to check one by one that everything is fine. If you have a mate that has spare parts you can always try those as well. Eliminate the issue one thing at a time.

MrMonroe

What video card do you have and how old is it?

It looks like a possible candidate for heat death, but Tuftoo shouldn't be giving you heat issues unless the card is really old.

blakfeld

Its a memory problem one way or another. Its either the video RAM or your system RAM.

elevature

I tried a different monitor so it's not the cable. I can't get the card out (I told you I'm terrible at this) but I think it's seated properly. I believe the card is a Radeon X800XL, and is around four years old. It did have heat problems that caused it to fail a few months ago, but that was because the fan on it stopped. I had that replaced, and it has worked fine until now. I checked to make sure the fan was still running and it was.

If it is a memory problem, why would that come on so suddenly? Fine for months and then it just stops working? I didn't install anything strange on it, I only use that PC for gaming and apart from installing Plants vs Zombies and Google Chrome recently I haven't put anything new on it in months.

Dman

Computer parts often exist in one of two states:
1. working perfectly
2. Not usable/not working

There is often no middle transition phase.

The fact that your experiencing these problems right at boot up is what makes us think this is less software related and more likely hardware related.

WIckedkarma

Sounds and looks very much like an overheating issue I once had or as some have said a possible Ram issue.
The card is actually very easy to remove once you get the side of the case off its just 1 screw to unscrew and then the card should come out easily.

I would suggest a very cheep but often overlooked step : Buy a can of air and dust the hell out of your system, make sure you get all the fans < video card, processor, any front / side fans, and the power supply fan. At the very least you just cleaned up your system some and at the most you just solved your issue.

If that fails then you may need to either brave taking out and re-seating your video card < or sucker a techie friend into helping you >

I could be mistaken but you made it sound like you had more then one computer. If you do you can try and swap out the ram on them and see if you are able to recreate the issue in the other system or your main system clears up.

If you dont have a second system or one uses a new version of DDR Ram you may just need to break down and find a cheep stick of ram which you can use just to test, If you take out the old ram and put in a single new stick and its fixed you solved the issue and you can either take the new ram back to the store and buy some better quality ram or just keep it and go get a second or third stick to match up what you had already.

A big part of fixing PC's is a ton of guess work usually, at least in my findings its not always clear what the issue is and so you have to try a few things to narrow it down.

Honestly it looks like your video card is dying if the fan failed not to long ago and you said the card is over 4 years old you should probably replace it. Here is a decent video walk through for replacing your video card. Not everything will look the same but it should all work the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMhUjpgP2_U

\

Dont forget to either memorize this or have it up on a second system so you can consult it when needed instead of taking the system apart and realizing holy crap I forgot what I'm doing.

elevature

thanks for the tips, guys. Turns out it was the video card, as I got my brother to put a new one in and now it works fine.

Unfortunately, the card is older than the one I had and I can't even find drivers for it on ATI's site, only on some sketchy sites that turn up in a Google search and I don't want to risk it since it's a temporary card. But I'm looking into upgrading/replacing it soon.

Captain Vash

what kind of connection is your vid card? agp?