Stupid computer problem (HELP!)

[Enigma]

I have only had this video card since last October and it is crapping out on me. Several times I get BSOD (error involving nv4_disp.dll, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA), black screen, black screen that flickers, an error involving video memory.

I guess PNY makes crap vid cards.

EDIT: Which company makes decent Geforce vid cards?

[Ma Deuce]

You could go straight to the company that makes the Geforce chipsets themselves: My NVIDIA cards have given me excellent service, though my previous one died suddenly after 5 trouble-free years when the GPU fried itself thanks to a cooling fan failure.

[Uraniun235]

Um, I'm pretty sure nVidia, unlike ATi, does not actually manufacture video cards.

Personally I've heard very good things about eVGA-brand video cards. I think the biggest thing to look for would be a lifetime warranty.

[Resinence]

I have only had this video card since last October and it is crapping out on me. Several times I get BSOD (error involving nv4_disp.dll, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA), black screen, black screen that flickers, an error involving video memory.

I guess PNY makes crap vid cards.

EDIT: Which company makes decent Geforce vid cards?

Which card do you have? The infinite loop STOP is a known error with some fx5xxx cards with certain drivers.

[Enigma]

I have only had this video card since last October and it is crapping out on me. Several times I get BSOD (error involving nv4_disp.dll, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA), black screen, black screen that flickers, an error involving video memory.

I guess PNY makes crap vid cards.

EDIT: Which company makes decent Geforce vid cards?

Which card do you have? The infinite loop STOP is a known error with some fx5xxx cards with certain drivers.

PNY Geforce 7300 GT

[Executor32]

I'd suggest BFG Technologies. They come with a factory overclock and an excellent warranty, and I've had no problems with the 7600GT I've had from them. My 6800GT died on me, but that was because I went too long without cleaning out the inside of the PC and the card's fans clogged with dust and it overheated. I RMA'd it and had a brand new one shipped back inside a week.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Um, I'm pretty sure nVidia, unlike ATi, does not actually manufacture video cards.

Personally I've heard very good things about eVGA-brand video cards. I think the biggest thing to look for would be a lifetime warranty.

I owned a EVGA card once and not a single problem with them. Very nice brand in my opinion. Probably tag one of the newer 8000 series cards from them soon.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

I've always bought and recommended XFX cards. I've had them myself for atleast the last 3 Geforce iterations and none of them have given me any trouble.

[Enigma]

Well I bought an MSI 8500GT and an AMD 4800 X2. Going to start the instalation and hope nothing goes wrong.

[Acidburns]

I would recommend BFG tech also. I had one die on me (ok, not exactly the best recommendation... but) and after sending it off I recieved new one within two days.

[Enigma]

Crap! Need help fast!

I installed both CPU and Vid card but now I get nothing onscreen.

On the initial bootup I get a message about the CMOS and that I had to go into the BIOS. I was too late in getting into it so I Ctl-Alt-Del, but on the second boot up I get nothing but a no signal message from the monitor and the monitor went in to sleep mode.

I don't get the beep that happens when you boot up and the only thing doing anything during boot up is the dvd light turned on for a second and I think the CPU fan is on (can't hear too good, but when I touch the computer I can feel it "hum".

What the hell happened? Did I fry something?

EDIT: Fixed that problem. All I needed to do was clear the CMOS. But now I am having trouble getting into windows. It constantly freezes up.

[Enigma]

I can't successfully get into windows in Safe Mode. It brings up the BSOD, saying something about a STOP: 0x0000008e (0x80000004, 0x806ecab0, 0x805502e0, 0x00000000)

Do I have to reinstall windows XP because of changing both CPU and video card?

[Acidburns]

Not normally no. Usually you only have to do that after something like a motherboard upgrade.

[Enigma]

Not normally no. Usually you only have to do that after something like a motherboard upgrade.

Ahh. Looks like I have to reinstall XP. I get a message saying that Hal.dll is either missing or corrupt. I want to copy the file from this computer onto mine but I can't get a network connection. Plus I am having difficulty getting XP setup to start since everytime I get past the bootup diagnostics it just hangs and gives that Hall.dll message. How can I get the XP setup to work? I'd love a command prompt but don't know how with XP.

[White Haven]

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA, hal.dll toast, random bluescreens...sounds to me like either hard drive or system RAM, more than anything else. In particular, that stop error usually occurs, in my experience, when a system's hard drive is going funky, and is caused by an attempt to use a bad sector as virtual memory (in that situation, not every time).

[Uraniun235]

Enigma, try running Windows Memory Diagnostic and see if it tosses any errors.

[Enigma]

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA, hal.dll toast, random bluescreens...sounds to me like either hard drive or system RAM, more than anything else. In particular, that stop error usually occurs, in my experience, when a system's hard drive is going funky, and is caused by an attempt to use a bad sector as virtual memory (in that situation, not every time).

I am going to create a bootdisk and manually paste a working hall.dll and see if it works.

the PAGE error is in relation to the vid card failing since I also had error messages about not being able to access video memory. Plus HDD failures would not result in the screen going black while playing a resource intensive game like Guild Wars, Half Life 2, etc... When that happens I have to restart since the screen settings is screwed up from the black screen.

[Enigma]

Enigma, try running Windows Memory Diagnostic and see if it tosses any errors.

That would work if I can get into windows but I can't get past the hall.dll during bootup and going into Safe mode just gives me the BSOD.

[Uraniun235]

Enigma, try running Windows Memory Diagnostic and see if it tosses any errors.

That would work if I can get into windows but I can't get past the hall.dll during bootup and going into Safe mode just gives me the BSOD.

Windows Memory Diagnostic isn't meant to be run within Windows; it's a bootdisk you create which loads the memory test program on startup, outside of Windows.

[Enigma]

Enigma, try running Windows Memory Diagnostic and see if it tosses any errors.

That would work if I can get into windows but I can't get past the hall.dll during bootup and going into Safe mode just gives me the BSOD.

Windows Memory Diagnostic isn't meant to be run within Windows; it's a bootdisk you create which loads the memory test program on startup, outside of Windows.

Ok, I ran the test twice and it passed all tests twice. So it isn't RAM.

[White Haven]

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA, hal.dll toast, random bluescreens...sounds to me like either hard drive or system RAM, more than anything else. In particular, that stop error usually occurs, in my experience, when a system's hard drive is going funky, and is caused by an attempt to use a bad sector as virtual memory (in that situation, not every time).

I am going to create a bootdisk and manually paste a working hall.dll and see if it works.

the PAGE error is in relation to the vid card failing since I also had error messages about not being able to access video memory. Plus HDD failures would not result in the screen going black while playing a resource intensive game like Guild Wars, Half Life 2, etc... When that happens I have to restart since the screen settings is screwed up from the black screen.

Neg, Star Colonel. Crispy-fried hard drive is still a possible culprit here, given that a resource-intensive game is going to be making use of your page file, and if that's on a dodgy hard drive...

Not saying that's necessarily the case, just don't rule it out. It's also not out of the question that you may have a video card failing on you at the same time as your hard drive is experiencing a slow degeneration over time. In other words, go get and run the bloody diagnostics before you go do all manner of software reinstalls, just to be sure, otherwise you m ight just have to do it all over again when the drive finishes crapping out again. Similar case if it's memory, but our friendly neighborhood isotope already covered that.

EDIT: Also, Enigma, did you run the standard tests, or the extended ones? I'd recommend hitting the key to switch to extended test mode, the standard ones are really just cursory glances.

[Enigma]

oh I didn't run the extended tests.

Where can I find some HDD diagnostic tests I can run off a floppy?

EDIT: Oh and during bootup, it shows that memory controller doesn't have an IRQ number, only a NA.

[White Haven]

Well, that largely depends on your drive. Who makes it?

[Enigma]

Well, that largely depends on your drive. Who makes it?

Samsung. But RAID names it NVIDIA.

EDIT: My RAM passed all extended tests.

[Uraniun235]

Nobody's mentioned power supply yet... maybe that's the culprit?