Rob Oplawar
July 3rd, 2007, 11:58 PM
I'm at a loss here, but it's becoming clear to me that I cannot fix this problem on my own. Everywhere I look on the internet they tell me the solution to my problem is to make sure I have the very latest graphics driver installed- well, I've even gone to the point of uninstalling my graphics driver altogether and installing the latest fresh off the internet from safe mode. I've tried everything I know of on the software side, and I'm afraid to go messing around on my own on the hardware side, so I'm gonna need some help. You guys are my last resort before I swallow my pride and call tech support.
Here's my problem:
When I start a game (any 3d game that uses Direct X, doesn't matter) everything starts out just hunky-dory. After a while, a couple of sprites/decals get corrupted and acquire strange colors (usually blue and red). Next go the textures- I start seeing textures with big patches just corrupted. After that I start seeing big stretched out triangles, like somebody grabbed one of the vertexes and yanked it off to the edge of the map. That starts on players, but then it extends to scenery and objects, and finally the level itself. If the level has no skybox, the area beyond the stretched/missing triangle does what's expected, but it's really ugly to see. This gets progressively worse, if I keep running the game, until finally, the game freezes, and I get the blue screen of death.
The message the blue screen gives me is that the driver nv4_disp.dll has become stuck in an infinite loop, which it says is likely a hardware problem (damn). nv4_disp.dll is part of the graphics driver.
And yes, I have followed various techniques for making sure that the dll is up to date.
If I quit the game, then my secondary monitor gets all messed up. It's hard to describe... suffice it to say that it becomes unusable. And then it goes to blue screen of death anyway.
So, here's the relevant hardware: my graphics card is a 7900 GS
it worked fine until I made a series of upgrades, any of which may have caused a hardware issue:
I hooked up a second monitor (bringing the resolution up to 3520x1200, which may itself be an issue, but shouldn't be)
I hooked up an expansion card for my sound card- I'm thinking I may have knocked something loose or shorted something when I did this, or it may simply be that hooking up an extra device to a Dell XPS power supply, which is, let's face it, the very minimum they could possibly give me to power what I bought (cheaper for them, eh >=D), may be too much for the power supply and now the graphics card isn't getting the current it needs.
I installed a new hard drive, which has the same possibilities as the sound card.
The power supply is 375W- not a lot, but it should be able to power:
Mobo,
2 hard drives,
1 vidcard,
2 soundcards,
1 optical drive,
and 2 fans, right?
I know cooling is not an issue because the processor has the biggest heatsink you've ever seen and it's got 2 12cm fans, so it stays pretty cool in there.
So I'm pretty distraught because my computer has bluescreened about 12 times now, and every single time it was this problem. I reeeeeeeaaaally don't want to call tech support on this one- does anybody have any suggestions? I have been planning to upgrade my vidcard anyway- do you think doing so will fix this, or is it perhaps a power issue?
Here's a vid of the errors:
HYPSMI1EyVY
Here's my problem:
When I start a game (any 3d game that uses Direct X, doesn't matter) everything starts out just hunky-dory. After a while, a couple of sprites/decals get corrupted and acquire strange colors (usually blue and red). Next go the textures- I start seeing textures with big patches just corrupted. After that I start seeing big stretched out triangles, like somebody grabbed one of the vertexes and yanked it off to the edge of the map. That starts on players, but then it extends to scenery and objects, and finally the level itself. If the level has no skybox, the area beyond the stretched/missing triangle does what's expected, but it's really ugly to see. This gets progressively worse, if I keep running the game, until finally, the game freezes, and I get the blue screen of death.
The message the blue screen gives me is that the driver nv4_disp.dll has become stuck in an infinite loop, which it says is likely a hardware problem (damn). nv4_disp.dll is part of the graphics driver.
And yes, I have followed various techniques for making sure that the dll is up to date.
If I quit the game, then my secondary monitor gets all messed up. It's hard to describe... suffice it to say that it becomes unusable. And then it goes to blue screen of death anyway.
So, here's the relevant hardware: my graphics card is a 7900 GS
it worked fine until I made a series of upgrades, any of which may have caused a hardware issue:
I hooked up a second monitor (bringing the resolution up to 3520x1200, which may itself be an issue, but shouldn't be)
I hooked up an expansion card for my sound card- I'm thinking I may have knocked something loose or shorted something when I did this, or it may simply be that hooking up an extra device to a Dell XPS power supply, which is, let's face it, the very minimum they could possibly give me to power what I bought (cheaper for them, eh >=D), may be too much for the power supply and now the graphics card isn't getting the current it needs.
I installed a new hard drive, which has the same possibilities as the sound card.
The power supply is 375W- not a lot, but it should be able to power:
Mobo,
2 hard drives,
1 vidcard,
2 soundcards,
1 optical drive,
and 2 fans, right?
I know cooling is not an issue because the processor has the biggest heatsink you've ever seen and it's got 2 12cm fans, so it stays pretty cool in there.
So I'm pretty distraught because my computer has bluescreened about 12 times now, and every single time it was this problem. I reeeeeeeaaaally don't want to call tech support on this one- does anybody have any suggestions? I have been planning to upgrade my vidcard anyway- do you think doing so will fix this, or is it perhaps a power issue?
Here's a vid of the errors:
HYPSMI1EyVY