I wonder if anyone can help me...
Initial Set-Up
CPU: Intel Pentium 4, 2.20 GHz
Motherboard: Intel Havre D845HV
RAM: 512MB SDRam
Graphics: 32MB GeForce 2 Ti (AGP)
OS: WinXP Home Edition
Monitor: Compaq FP1706
Shortly after moving house and getting my antiquated PC up-and-running, it began to falter. A few minutes into doing anything graphically-intensive (i.e. playing a game), the display would suddenly turn into a garbled mess, and the computer would freeze - forcing me to reset.
Gradually, this problem became more and more frequent, occurring the moment a game started.
I had guessed at this point that, perhaps, my graphics card was on its way out. I gave the insides a good clean, blowing away the dust that had accumulated over a couple of years of sporadic use, but it did no good.
Eventually, the same problem started happening in Windows itself, and then during boot-up.
I have no integrated graphics on the motherboard, so couldn't try it without the graphics card. However, a friend had a 128MB GeForce FX 5200 I was able to borrow to see if the graphics card was, indeed the problem. This is what now happens:
Most of the time, when I first try to boot up, the monitor refuses to "notice" any signal, and goes into sleep mode. The computer sounds like it continues to boot up, but if I wait long enough it eventually resets itself. If I turn off the PC, and turn it back on again, doing the same thing with the monitor too, I can usually get it to boot into Windows.
If I try to play a game that uses the graphics card, the game will load but within a few seconds it starts to lag/freeze-up/hang, occasionally stuttering and then allowing a few more seconds of play until doing so again. Eventually I have to switch to the desktop or task manager and end the game's process, because it is unplayable.
Any ideas why these two issues are occurring? And any advice would be greatly appreciated. I had thought that using a 128MB card over the 32MB card would have made a huge improvement, but have I actually taken a step backwards?
Thanks in advance.
Initial Set-Up
CPU: Intel Pentium 4, 2.20 GHz
Motherboard: Intel Havre D845HV
RAM: 512MB SDRam
Graphics: 32MB GeForce 2 Ti (AGP)
OS: WinXP Home Edition
Monitor: Compaq FP1706
Shortly after moving house and getting my antiquated PC up-and-running, it began to falter. A few minutes into doing anything graphically-intensive (i.e. playing a game), the display would suddenly turn into a garbled mess, and the computer would freeze - forcing me to reset.
Gradually, this problem became more and more frequent, occurring the moment a game started.
I had guessed at this point that, perhaps, my graphics card was on its way out. I gave the insides a good clean, blowing away the dust that had accumulated over a couple of years of sporadic use, but it did no good.
Eventually, the same problem started happening in Windows itself, and then during boot-up.
I have no integrated graphics on the motherboard, so couldn't try it without the graphics card. However, a friend had a 128MB GeForce FX 5200 I was able to borrow to see if the graphics card was, indeed the problem. This is what now happens:
Most of the time, when I first try to boot up, the monitor refuses to "notice" any signal, and goes into sleep mode. The computer sounds like it continues to boot up, but if I wait long enough it eventually resets itself. If I turn off the PC, and turn it back on again, doing the same thing with the monitor too, I can usually get it to boot into Windows.
If I try to play a game that uses the graphics card, the game will load but within a few seconds it starts to lag/freeze-up/hang, occasionally stuttering and then allowing a few more seconds of play until doing so again. Eventually I have to switch to the desktop or task manager and end the game's process, because it is unplayable.
Any ideas why these two issues are occurring? And any advice would be greatly appreciated. I had thought that using a 128MB card over the 32MB card would have made a huge improvement, but have I actually taken a step backwards?
Thanks in advance.
