Owlie's Monitor Freezing Up Time To Time

[Niteowl]

dont' know what happened. by my monitor, when doing anything except gaming (thank god), that is, browsing the intarweb, any sorta windows app. system will freeze very briefly, monitor will go blank, , then come back on, like it's resetting itself. this happens usually in response to a mouse movement, or window resizing, but WHEN it responds to aforementioned stimuli is random. i lose no data or anything after doing that.

some fixes i've tried
-shutting off steam and trillian
-did a trojan sweep with SwatIt (are there better programs out there?)
-ran AdAware
-ran SpyBot
-ran anti-virus (AVG)
-check power management, nothing weird there. all the options are off.
-de-install and reinstall the latest video driver
-check fragmentation, the puter tells me i don't need no stinking defragging done.


anything else i can try? i notice some of the 2D stuff in NS is sometimes totally borked.. like teh textures in bast (from time to time) or the CONSOLE text!

arrghh.. would a new video card fix it?! do you think my video card is fried? i got a .. wait for it.. GeForce 2 64 meg 440MMX (yeah, i know yer drooling).


if anyone nkows why this might be happeneing, i'd much appreciate.

[Isamil]

Do you have Windows ME?

[Niteowl]

windows 2000 pro. this started happening sometime last week. nothing untoward, or that i can think of, started it.

[Dark]

i know you don't want to do this owlie but if nothing works you should buy a new monitor

i wish i knew something you could try <_<

[Niteowl]

it can't be the monitor, because then my NS would freeze too. my monitor, AFAIK, doesn't know if i'im running 2D or 3D, nor does it care. but my card does. is my card fried?

my monitor is a Samsung 900NF.

[GrayDuck]

Hmmmm.....

Owl's angling for a new video card.
HL2 gets released soon.

coincidence?

[Niteowl]

Hmmmm.....

Owl's angling for a new video card.
HL2 gets released soon.

coincidence?

[snapback]27385[/snapback]

YOU DONT" GO AND TELL MRS. OWLIE THAT GRAYDUCK!!

[Satiagraha]

I agree, sounds like a vid card problem. There's nothing wrong with purchasing a new video card if you current one is broken, right? And besides, if you're going to buy a new one, it may as well be a good one :p

[Dark]

it can't be the monitor, because then my NS would freeze too. my monitor, AFAIK, doesn't know if i'im running 2D or 3D, nor does it care. but my card does. is my card fried?

my monitor is a Samsung 900NF.

[snapback]27383[/snapback]

well like i stated i had no sure fire solution for you  

[Malevolent]

Time for a new video card. And if Mrs. Owlie doesn't want you spending too much on one, there are a lot of good cards that are cheap. :p

[SgtFury]

Sounds a good idea to me too, Ati 9600XT `s are pretty good for the price to quality ratio, But then I`m biased to my own card  

[lolfighter]

Whenever you suspect a part is fried or faulty, try to borrow a spare or something and swap the suspected part out to see if that's really the problem.

[Niteowl]

i'm prolly just gonig to get a very very very old card that works, and see if that's the problem.


ok, thanks for the info everyone, now it's time for a hardware lesson from you hardware geeks.

please help me with these two series:

Nvidia
GeForce 2 MX, normal, Ti
GeForce 3 MX, normal, Ti
Geforce 4 MX, normal, Ti
Geforce FX5200
Geforce FX5500
Geforce FX5600

these ones i don't know where they are ranked
GeForce 6800 GT, ultra/GeForce PCX5900/GeForce PCX5750
..


ATI
...
Radeon 9200
Radeon 9250
Radeon 9300
Radeon 9600, SE, pro, XT
Radeon 9800, SE, pro, XT
x800 pro, XT
...

ok? help me fill in the ellipses!

[lolfighter]

It's GeForce MX, MMX is a processor technology you nub. :p

[That Annoying Kid]

dont' know what happened. by my monitor, when doing anything except gaming (thank god), that is, browsing the intarweb, any sorta windows app. system will freeze very briefly, monitor will go blank, , then come back on, like it's resetting itself.

OLO zerwalter has that exact same problem, and it happens to him ingame [the monitor going black for about a second that is]

[Malevolent]

Well the 6800GT is at least $399 USD, and so is the X800 Pro. Don't know how much the 9800 Pro costs, but it is less. I also hear you might as well not get any card in the FX series, so your best bet would be a 9600 or 9800 variant for an affordable price.

EDIT: The 6800 Ultra and X800 XT are $499 and up. Their prices can get high since their availability is low. If you look though, you could find one for the right price (though it might be a preorder especially in the X800 XT's case).

[Niteowl]

i'm thinking ATI 9600 SE. very lower middle of the road card.

[confused!]

back when i had a pc this used to happen  to me. as i recall, it was at least partially caused by the fan on the card being entirely full of dust. Usually an indication fo`rom the  powers that be, the gods of dust bunnies, that it is time to buy a new card.

[sonic]

Unclog all the owl droppings from it :p

[Niteowl]

i got a 9600SE.. it's ok, no real performance change, other than i can play the Pandora Tommorrow demo :/

i seem to get weird crashes now. i think it might be faulty ram or faulty HD.. hrm. oh well, i'll slug it out.