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Home › Blogs › LottoVantage's Blog › Computer Problems

Computer Problems

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Have had computer problems for over a week. I clicked on a fwd e-mail from a friend, the screen went black, and the computer re-booted. The computer gets through the "Windows loading" screen but when the "Welcome screen" appears the computer screen goes black showing an hour glass and pointer. I re-booted into "safe mode", deleted the graphics card driver, and re-booted the computer. I finally got to the "desk-top", and the computer is running in "vga/save mode". I tried re-loading the DELL factory Nvidia graphics driver and after the re-load the computer went through the same process as I previously described, hanging up at the "welcome screen", (black screen with hour glass and pointer showing).

I decided I don't have a virus, I think my graphics card is having a problem so I formatted the hard drive, reloaded everything, and the problem still exists. I think this supports my belief that the graphics card has gone south.

I ordered an upgrade graphics card from DELL and hope this will fix the problem.

My computer is a DELL Dimension 4500 and is about six years old. This is the first serious problem I have ever had with it. I am on the blog today using my wife's newer DELL Dimension 4700 computer.

Looking at the shipping order, there is a real good chance that DHL will deliver my new graphics card today!

I ordered a new e-GeForce 7300 GS 256 MB DDR2 PCI Graphics Card. This is a real upgrade from the old 64 MB DDR GeForce TI 4200 Card that origionally came with the computer. I really have no complaints with the old one with all the graphics work I have accomplished with it, but now I am really looking forward to working with this new upgraded one!

Hey, wish me well that my theory is correct, and I can get up and going again real soon. Oooooohh, I can't hardly wait, it's about to drive me NUTS!!!

Yeah, I know, some of you already think I'm NUTS! Confused

Entry #433

Comments

Avatar angelm -
#1
Good luck!I hate computer problems!I had my share a couple of weeks ago!
Avatar jarasan -
#2
I "tried to open a photo and lost a drive 2 months ago" on a 5 year old dimension latitude. The fact you are getting video info from the welcome screen and hour glass means the card is ok and you were able to format and see the video when you did that, you may have something hanging up windows when it tries to boot, I would remove all cards except video, I think that model has an onboard VGA ?, on safe mode the nic card is disabled remove the nic card if you have one and any others. Check in the bios also to see if can see the memory, there are hardware diags on the dell disks. You are not nuts I see this kind of stuff everyday.
Avatar LottoVantage -
#3
Well, I received the new card DELL reccomended and it was the wrong card, wouldn't fit! Got return certification and sent it back yesterday. They sent a PCI card, and I need a VGA card. Will be getting an e-GeForce 7300 GT AGP 512 MB DDR2 Graphics Card as soon as I receive confirmation that the old one has been returned.

The origional card was a 64MB DDR GeForce TI4200 Graphics Card. Unfortunately, there was no indication that it was only VGA compatable, and on their site, DELL reccommends only PCI compatable Graphics Cards for upgrades on their older Dimension 4500 computers.

Anyway, to reiterate, the reason I think the problem is with the old Graphics card is this:

I have the origional driver for the old graphics card installed. If I shut the computer down and reboot from scratch, it boots up through the Windows Greeting, and when it gets to the Welcome Screen the monitor goes black with an hour glass and a pointer showing. At this point all I can do is shut the computer down by pressing the on/off button on the computer.

Now, if I boot up to the DELL logo and hit F8 and get into Safe Mode, then go to Hardware/Devices, then click on Video Adapter, then uninstall the driver for the Video Adapter, then reboot the computer, the computer boots all the way up to the Desktop. After the Desktop loads I get a notice that New Hardware has been found (VGA/Save), I let this go, then I get an additional notice that New Hardware has been found ( 64MB DDR GeForce TI4200 Video Adapter), which at this time I hit the "Escape" key to keep it from loading, and the computer operates normally in "VGA/Save mode.

This tells me one thing: That as long as the computer does not see the installed Graphics Card it runs normally in VGA/Save mode. As soon as it is able to see and load the driver for the installed Graphics Card, it re-boots all the way up to the Welcome Screen and locks up with the black screen and hour glass/pointer showing.

The only thing here that seems to be effecting the ability to successfully boot-up to the Desktop is the installed Graphics Card and Driver.

Unless I am missing something here, the only thing I see effecting normal operation is the installed Video Adapter Card/Driver. To eliminate any question concerning the Driver, at the time this all began, the Graphics Card was successfully running on an updated Nvidia Video Driver.

The reason I Formatted the Hard Drive was to load a clean copy of Windows XP with the (origional) Driver for the TI4200 Graphics Card, eleminating any questions concerning the Video Drivers.

If I am missing anything here, please let me know, I need all the help I can get!

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