Red Vertical lines on monitor

Richie-from-the-Boro

JasX wrote: »

cross post. hmm definitely points more towards the graphics card

At first sight I thought so too, his description ' scotch pattern of red ' is a classic symptom of overclocked GPU - or overheated GPU / but /

A quick google suggests that when updating drivers Vista is unable to remove the old nvlddmkm.sys and you end up with a mismatch of old and new driver bits.

Worth a try, see how it pans out !

KillerWatt

I'm in agreement with the video card failing due to overheating.
I would check the fan on the card itself is clear and spinning, although the damage is probably already done.

Richie-from-the-Boro

See #8 by John Gray ref : NVLDDMK.SYS and clicking on the blue in post #12 explains why you need to manually clear out the NVLDDMK.SYS.

If you have trouble renaming the last dot three in your O/S come back and ask here !

KillerWatt

The way the OP's first post reads, everything (inc Footie manager) has been working fine for some time.
The fact that the hieroglyphics appeared in safe mode point straight away to hardware failure (namely the GPU), as the nVidia drivers would not have been loaded in safe mode.

abbas5001

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Look here

Read the para that starts with : Fix - Go to windows/system32/drivers and rename nvlddmkm.sys to nvlddmkm.sys.old.

It explains why you have to do it manually !

Thanks.

Tried following the instructions. Managed to do this part ok: "Fix: Go to windows/system32/drivers and rename nvlddmkm.sys to nvlddmkm.sys.old. Go to the nvidia directory and find the file nvlddmkm.sy_ and copy it to windows/system32."

Changed the extension and copied over okay. However, i seem to have a number of folders in the Nvidia directory (most likely due to all the versions i have installed and uninstalled) but took the file from the most recent installation. Noticed that the icon on both the edited and pasted file is blank, usually the System files have a cog icon meaning the computer knows what type of file it is.

However, when i try this: " Using the cmd window (DOS box) type
EXPAND.EXE nvlddmkm.sy_ nvlddmkm.sys. When the expansion is complete, copy the new nvlddmkm.sys to windows/system32/drivers and restart the computer."

Tried this but get this message "Can't open input file nvlddmkm.sy_."

Should i resign myself to the most likely possibility the GPU is done for?

KillerWatt

abbas5001 wrote: »

Should i resign myself to the most likely possibility the GPU is done for?

Have you checked that the fan on your video card is freee of dust/dirt and is actually spinning when the computer is switched on?
You can also check the rough temperature of the GPU while the PC is on by touching the side of the heatsink on the graphics card, but be aware that if it is cooking itself then it will be hot enough to remove skin.

JasX

abbas5001 wrote: »

Should i resign myself to the most likely possibility the GPU is done for?

not until you've tried it in another computer and proved its at fault,

If drivers are constantly playing up the most reliable way to sort them out would be reinstalling your operating system and reinstalling em from scratch....

...being sure to have backed up all your data to an external drive first

Richie-from-the-Boro

As others have said, prove your video card in a~n~other puter, before you conclude it's a dead GPU.

- first thing you should do is use a driver cleaner / registry cleaner and then reinstall new nVidea drivers

- there is a process to follow especially in soddin Vista which constantly makes backups of backups of shadow copies of even more backups etc !

- you also need to switch off UAC, you virus [ unplug the ethernet ] checker, empty your recycle bin, turn on ' show all folders ', and physically delete the nVidia folders & sub-folders before reinstalling your new drivers.

- your starting point is to get ready your :

- - - new drivers 32 or 64 bit downloaded and ready
- - - be prepared to work in ' safe mode '
- - - ccleaner pre-installed, get it from file hippo
- - - a driver cleaner downloaded and ready, here are the 64 bit cleaners

Let us know your video card model & is your O/S x86 or x64 ?

KillerWatt

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Let us know your video card model & is your O/S x86 or x64 ?

The OP gave that info a while back

abbas5001 wrote: »

The following are my specs:

OS: Windows Vista Home Premium
Graphics card : NVIDIA Geforce 8800 GT
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz
RAM: 3GB

abbas5001

Hi,

checked the GPU fan and it had some dust but nothing excessive and is spinning when the system is running. . It must be working to some effect as i touched the GPU while running and it was reasonably hot as expected but not burning (i would be able to keep my hand on it without fear of scalding).

KillerWatt wrote: »

Have you checked that the fan on your video card is freee of dust/dirt and is actually spinning when the computer is switched on?
You can also check the rough temperature of the GPU while the PC is on by touching the side of the heatsink on the graphics card, but be aware that if it is cooking itself then it will be hot enough to remove skin.