My computer is acting up. Not a good time for it to do so, since I am still working on this “rush” job. I do need to get it finished up this week. Let me tell you all what is happening and you tell me what to do to fix it, other than purchasing another computer. I think it is the video card and that can be replaced fairly easily. Or do different computers and operating systems take different cards. I use computers, I don’t work on them.
The video starts out just fine when I turn on the computer. In fact, it stays OK almost all day, and then it starts to get blurry. It gets so bad I can’t see where to close or save the programs I have opened. That caused me some lost time when I couldn’t save the drawing that was up. I had left the room to watch a TV show and came back in and the video screen was a jumble of colors. Sort of like if you took a fine tooth comb and scraped it across a wet painting.
Let me know what you think and what you would do to quickly solve the problem. Got to get working while I can see the screen. May take a quick trip to the flea market, even though it is threatening rain. I think I will shut the computer system down for a rest if I do leave for awhile. You all have a great day now, you hear?
Well, with that antique computer you got. My first guess is the monitor it's self is failing, put a fan to blow on it, cool it off. OR the Video card is failing, Try the fan on it (Open the computer case and blow it out with canned air, the leave it open and let it get more cooling.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, take the video card out and go get a new one.
OR move into the new century and go get you a brand new large screen Laptop!!
What Ben said.............
ReplyDeletePretty sure it will be the video card, however if it is as antique as some have hinted you may have to look for a while to find one to replace it. I do all my computer parts shopping on line at "new egg.com". You can shop online or actually call them and speak to a real american person. They always have whatever I am looking for and the prices are pretty good. Sounds like you do not want a new one, however this time of the year especially there are some pretty good deals out there. Also most places that sell the new ones could transfer all of your old files to the new one in a couple of hours.
ReplyDeleteAwww,, cmon, DD,,,you can update your home, and not your computer? lmao Just think how much faster that work would get done.
ReplyDeleteOK, will answer Ben, Sharon, Anon, and Trouble all at once. I always have my computers built special to handle the engineering software more efficiently. I do not want to have to do that when I want to finish this job up in a few days or so. I have more memory than most, a lot of memory on the video card, multiple hard-drives, and a lot of other features that I can not purchase off the shelf. I would not say it is an antique, but some of my engineering software that I like to run, will not operate on Vista, (don’t know about Window’s 7 Pro) so I am sticking to my Widows XP-Professional for now. I so have the latest engineering software, but for some jobs I prefer the older versions and some of my customers don’t have the newer versions.
ReplyDeleteMy engineer friend had to buy a new laptop in a hurry for a new engineering gig. He got a computer that had been designed for hardcore gamers. Speed and excellent graphics are important to that slice of the computer market.
ReplyDeleteMake sure you back up everything before playing around too much with the machine. On stray spark can ruin your day.
Hope you figure it out. My father in law is our familie's computer guy. We drop off our problems and pick them up fixed. ( we pay him in baked goods)
ReplyDeleteSixbears, I have a couple of external hard-drives that I use to back up stuff along with flash drives. That is if I remember.
ReplyDeleteJill, Maybe I could send it to your father in law, what do you think? (grin)
Late to the party, sorry. If you have another monitor sitting around you could plug it in and leave the computer on all night to see if it duplicates on a different monitor. With the fancy graphics card you have, it is probably the card (memory and such). If you can, reseat as much as you can on the card, and reseat the card in the computer. If you haven't done this already. The heat and cold will cause things to move. Course, I may have just shown my age in that I'm assuming that your card goes into a socket on the MB since it is custom, but maybe not...
ReplyDelete