so a few weeks back my computer started messing up during the boot process. for whatever reason my screen is all wacky with a scrambled mess but can still make out the letters and stuff. but once the vista load bar gets done it flashes to a blue error screen. i initially thought this was a graphics card problem, but i had my friend take a look couldnt figure it out, i had an extra mobo around and we used that and BAM all was well, thing had been running fine, until today. back to what it was doing before we installed the new mobo. im thinking it might be a hard drive problem? anyone else have any ideas? gotta figure if it was a graphics card problem it would have done the same thing once installed on the new mobo right? failing hard drive? any input is appreciated
Assuming you have blue screen of death, which it what it sounds like: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958233 This should help. If you can get to this point.
Otherwise, hopefully you have your information backed up, and you can just reinstall Vista, and that should fix it, I believe.
If you can't repair it, and don't have your data backed up. Pick one of these up, if you're in Houston Compusa off I-10 off bunkerhill has them. http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2329300&CatId=3770
cant exactly tell whats the blue screen is saying, its all scrambled like just my screen is weird, not sure how to describe it. but cant make out what it says. other than that its doing a physical memory dump. that stops then the thing reboots and just has the same crap happen again. i mean like i said, it was doing this same thing, a few weeks back my friend was able to take a look, installed the new mobo and it has been fine up until today. makes me believe it isnt a graphics card problem, possibly a power supply problem, but why would it work great for weeks with the new mobo? which leaves me to believe maybe the hard drive. it did seem to be running louder at the startup i figured might have been since i cleaned the case out when my friend went to take a look inside the case.
Can you hear a skipping noise when it is in blue screen? It could be your hd if so. Also check to see if your ram is loose. I remember when I had blue screen, one of my ram was not in all the way. Solve my problem.
hmm a distorted screen/funny characters is a classic graphics card issue, when he replaced the mobo, what did he reuse from your old computer? I'm guessing ram, hard disk and various pci cards?
theres nothing on my hard drive i need to backup, all my music is on an external hard drive already, so no need to worry about salvaging the data on the hard drive. again, i'm just trying to pin point the problem, i know thats tough since i cant give much info, but im leaning towards it being the hard drive is failing with the steps taken previously with using the new mobo and such. thanks for the input so far guys.
To really pinpoint a BSOD or crash, download and install the Debugging Tools for Windows, run WinDbg and File>Open Crash Dump and find your most dated crash dump file (located in C:/Windows/minidump) and enter !analyze -v and should give you a good idea of what's causing the crash. That tool has saved me so much headache. All of the crashes I had (which regular Windows couldn't figure out) were all due to outdated Realtek drivers.
theres no way i'm going to be able to get to that. my computer just reboots itself before getting to the windows desktop.
Go into safe mode and do a system restore with older restore point. Sound like a video card problem or driver problem for the video card. Make sure your video card isn't overheating with bad hardware or driver.
You can try to isolate the problem by removing parts one by one. Since you're having problems with graphical corruption and a blue screen, try removing the graphics card and running the system using the onboard (motherboard) video. If everything is fine using the onboard video, your graphics card is the problem. Graphical corruption usually doesn't have anything to do with the hard drive. In my experience, a failing hard drive will create corrupted files and eventually not boot into the OS anymore.
What is your computer specs? Hardrive, video card, ram, psu, OS system?? It's not your hard drive. Sounds like a video card corruption. The only way to find out is to put that video card into an already built system and find out. You will not find out by just putting it into a new motherboard without an OS system on it. It also could be other variable...
How good is your friend with rigging and setting up a computer? You better have a double check with your CPU and make sure the heatsink place properly and fans working to keep the temperature in your system running properly. If system restore doesn't help it's a hardware issue. Double check the cpu, PSU, video card, ram and motherboard and hopefully nothing is overheating.
