Hiall, Noobie Alert,
I won a computer A YEAR AGO and have been unable to use it as LCD display is unreadable!
The computer was built by TechTV/G4 cable show employees from parts from TigerDirect.
Asus A8V Deluxe Via Socket 939 ATX Motherboard
Athlon 64 4000+ processor
nVidia xFXGeForce 6800GT videocard
Ultra X-Connect 500W Modular Power Supply
Ultra XL 1024 Mb PC3200 DDR 400Mhz (2 x 512 Mb) Ram
Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 400Gb Serial ATA HD
BenQ FP2091 20.1" LCD, 400:1 contrast, 16ms response, 1600x1200
Microsoft Windows Media Center 2005
w/ various other goodies
When it arrived all the round modular cabling had fallen off connections (as VERY Heavy connectors on cables) and Videocard had come partially out of AGP slot.
I didn't find this out for almost 2 months as my father was in hospital in ICU when it arrived and just didn't have time then to unpack and check it out :+( When I did after he died, etc I found that after reseating card and reconnecting cables that display went NG when had a problem activating Windows Media Center. Since computer wasn't online it gave me some code and I used a touchtype phone to enter it and said code was invalid. Tried several times. At one point I was in middle of this activation process and got a phone call and when I got back to computer it had gone to some "screensaver or powersaver mode" so had a blank screen which I couldn't seem to get out of (locked up?). Anywho, I eventually had to hard reboot the pc and from then on had a crappy display!
On initial Dos-like boot screens where says biosname, Hard Drives Found, Memory, etc. before goes to a Windows screen it is now TOTALLY FILLED with random Ascii gibberish Around the "real" useful text, making it impossible to read load failures, drivers, etc as they're buried in it. When it gets to Windows load screen it has columns of dots for the full height of monitor spaced ~ 1/2" apart. LCD is OK as I hooked it up to my old computer and dispays fine, NG on xFXGeForce 6800GT using Digital or Analog inputs (but both would come from same source tho, so if card prob would make no diff as just stick an adapter cable in to get analog, no analog output directly out of videocard. Has 2 DVI output connectors but get output out of only one of them (and it's this crappy stuff), other makes LCD say "No Signal Found".
I then had an aunt die, then I had a heart attack, ... So after a year I'm finally getting back trying to fix this big, black paperweight. Can't go back to G4/Tech TV as has been > 1yr so I'm on my own and mony is low as now on 13 scrips a month !!
Anyone have any ideas what this can be and how I can fix it. I would rather not reformat hard drive as it may have unknown goodies on it that I'll lose ;+( But maybe operating system got trashed? Or maybe vid card died?
Hopefully Thanx,
manic49er
I won a computer A YEAR AGO and have been unable to use it as LCD display is unreadable!
The computer was built by TechTV/G4 cable show employees from parts from TigerDirect.
Asus A8V Deluxe Via Socket 939 ATX Motherboard
Athlon 64 4000+ processor
nVidia xFXGeForce 6800GT videocard
Ultra X-Connect 500W Modular Power Supply
Ultra XL 1024 Mb PC3200 DDR 400Mhz (2 x 512 Mb) Ram
Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 400Gb Serial ATA HD
BenQ FP2091 20.1" LCD, 400:1 contrast, 16ms response, 1600x1200
Microsoft Windows Media Center 2005
w/ various other goodies
When it arrived all the round modular cabling had fallen off connections (as VERY Heavy connectors on cables) and Videocard had come partially out of AGP slot.
I didn't find this out for almost 2 months as my father was in hospital in ICU when it arrived and just didn't have time then to unpack and check it out :+( When I did after he died, etc I found that after reseating card and reconnecting cables that display went NG when had a problem activating Windows Media Center. Since computer wasn't online it gave me some code and I used a touchtype phone to enter it and said code was invalid. Tried several times. At one point I was in middle of this activation process and got a phone call and when I got back to computer it had gone to some "screensaver or powersaver mode" so had a blank screen which I couldn't seem to get out of (locked up?). Anywho, I eventually had to hard reboot the pc and from then on had a crappy display!
On initial Dos-like boot screens where says biosname, Hard Drives Found, Memory, etc. before goes to a Windows screen it is now TOTALLY FILLED with random Ascii gibberish Around the "real" useful text, making it impossible to read load failures, drivers, etc as they're buried in it. When it gets to Windows load screen it has columns of dots for the full height of monitor spaced ~ 1/2" apart. LCD is OK as I hooked it up to my old computer and dispays fine, NG on xFXGeForce 6800GT using Digital or Analog inputs (but both would come from same source tho, so if card prob would make no diff as just stick an adapter cable in to get analog, no analog output directly out of videocard. Has 2 DVI output connectors but get output out of only one of them (and it's this crappy stuff), other makes LCD say "No Signal Found".
I then had an aunt die, then I had a heart attack, ... So after a year I'm finally getting back trying to fix this big, black paperweight. Can't go back to G4/Tech TV as has been > 1yr so I'm on my own and mony is low as now on 13 scrips a month !!
Anyone have any ideas what this can be and how I can fix it. I would rather not reformat hard drive as it may have unknown goodies on it that I'll lose ;+( But maybe operating system got trashed? Or maybe vid card died?
Hopefully Thanx,
manic49er
