Power Surge?

T

trxjw

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 29, 2005
Messages
408
I woke up this morning and my monitors power light was slowly blinking yellow. I couldn't get it to go green and come on, so I turned it off and reset my machine. The machine powered up again and the monitor clicked on.. then everything on the bios screen started flashing green like it was possessed so I shut it off quickly. It finally loaded the desktop and now all my color profiles are shot and I keep getting static out of my headphones and periodically the monitor will change color hues or the picture will shake as though the scan line progression is out of whack.

I thought it was just my monitor (which sucks because it was $450 bucks two years ago and isn't under warranty anymore) but this static is really throwing me off. My APC backup looks fine and isn't beeping or anything like my last one did when it got cooked, so I'm at a loss. I installed new video and audio drivers with no change in system performance. Anyone else have any ideas? Or have I finally run out of excuses for not buying a new system just yet?

Also as an added bonus.. my cursor is now pink. 0_o

I'm messing around with the color profiles on the ATI control pannel and they are so out of whack that I think my video card is shot. I had my settings saved in a text file before and now even those which were next to perfect are very very red biased -- almost pink. I've got a FX5900 kicking around here somewhere.. if I find it I'm going to change it out with the 9800XT i have in there now and hope it's the card and not my monitor.
 
If you have voltage monitoring software, try checking that all your voltages are within tolerances. The static kinda makes me think it could be your motherboard at fault if you're using onboard audio. I'd try the video card in another computer with the same monitor and see what happens. Keep isolating components that way until you get it down to just one part that's constant.
 
I'm not using onboard audio actually. I have a Audigy 2 ZS Gamer edition card that I've been using for about 2 and a half years I believe. Sorry I didn't specify that.

I'm not sure about how I'm going to troubleshoot the problem since the only other machine in my house is my roommates SLI machine so I couldn't test my video cards on it since they're both AGP.

Although he also has the same monitor (Sony Trinitron) and he told me his has done the same thing at certain points and simply turning it off for a while solved the issue. Unfortunately it hasn't solved my issue so far.
 
Does your monitor have a degauss feature? You can try that and see if it helps any.

Knowing that two separate expansions cards are displaying strange behavior now leads me to believe that either A) you were indeed struck by a power surge that your UPS could not stop and are entitled to restitution by the manufacturer of your UPS, or B) Your motherboard or PSU are trying to kick the bucket.

I suppose there is a possibility that if the video card were to develop a short, it could make the power line on the PCI bus unstable and might interfere with the correct operation of the sound card as well. I wouldn't bet too much on that though. You can at least rule out the sound card by trying it in another machine. The PSU and motherboard are a bit tougher to isolate.
 
I'd say its the card. Pink cursor = artifacting. Card probably went up, and is causing interference with the rest of the slots/IRQ. Find a card to test.
 
Fuse said:
I'd say its the card. Pink cursor = artifacting. Card probably went up, and is causing interference with the rest of the slots/IRQ. Find a card to test.
Click to expand...

Yeah thats what I'm thinking. I'm gonna swap it out tomorrow with another one and see if it works. If it does, I'm going to order my new machine. If it doesn't work, Ill keep lookin to see what it is. If it's the monitor, I'm goin out and getting a 226BW tomorrow.
 
Ended up being the card, I put in my old 5900 Ultra and it's working, however there's still interference with the sound card. I've given up trying to figure it out since my roommates sound card does the same thing when I plug it in. I'm gonna go ahead and order my new system this week. Here are the specs:

E6420 (Not sure about the heatsink yet.. will an AC7 Pro get me 3-3.2ghz?)
MSI P6N SLI Platinum
2GB Buffalo Firestix
8800GTS 640mb
150GB Raptor (not 100% on this.. not sure if it's worth it)
250GB WD2500KS
X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
Samsung 18X DVD Burner
Corsair 620HX
Silverstone TJ09
 
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