Posted: 12/4/2010 10:00:16 PM EDT
| My issue originally started out with the computer randomly hanging up and the screen turning green with lots of black dots. Reinstalling video drivers resolved the issue for a while, but then it got worse. After the next hang and reboot, Windows refused to acknowledge that my video card existed. Resolution was stuck at 640x480 and image quality was very low, including lots of black dots everywhere in place of some textures and colors. This issue persisted in the BIOS splash screen, though oddly not in POST. Reinstalling drivers would not resolve this issue, so I opted to reinstall Window 7. Video resolution throughout the install process had not improved. Now I've reached a tricky part. Having installed Windows 7, I can't get passed the login screen. It refuses to accept my password. Initially I suspected that I had mistyped my password and reinstalled Windows again. No such luck. I tried a 3rd reinstall with no password set and I still can not log in. Every install has been a clean install from a legal Windows 7 disc. Does anyone have any ideas what is happening? |
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My issue originally started out with the computer randomly hanging up and the screen turning green with lots of black dots. Reinstalling video drivers resolved the issue for a while, but then it got worse. After the next hang and reboot, Windows refused to acknowledge that my video card existed. Resolution was stuck at 640x480 and image quality was very low, including lots of black dots everywhere in place of some textures and colors. This issue persisted in the BIOS splash screen, though oddly not in POST. Reinstalling drivers would not resolve this issue, so I opted to reinstall Window 7. Video resolution throughout the install process had not improved. Now I've reached a tricky part. Having installed Windows 7, I can't get passed the login screen. It refuses to accept my password. Initially I suspected that I had mistyped my password and reinstalled Windows again. No such luck. I tried a 3rd reinstall with no password set and I still can not log in. Every install has been a clean install from a legal Windows 7 disc. Does anyone have any ideas what is happening? I got this far. |
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My issue originally started out with the computer randomly hanging up and the screen turning green with lots of black dots. Reinstalling video drivers resolved the issue for a while, but then it got worse. After the next hang and reboot, Windows refused to acknowledge that my video card existed. Resolution was stuck at 640x480 and image quality was very low, including lots of black dots everywhere in place of some textures and colors. This issue persisted in the BIOS splash screen, though oddly not in POST. Reinstalling drivers would not resolve this issue, so I opted to reinstall Window 7. Video resolution throughout the install process had not improved. Now I've reached a tricky part. Having installed Windows 7, I can't get passed the login screen. It refuses to accept my password. Initially I suspected that I had mistyped my password and reinstalled Windows again. No such luck. I tried a 3rd reinstall with no password set and I still can not log in. Every install has been a clean install from a legal Windows 7 disc. Does anyone have any ideas what is happening? I got this far. Ok, as a programmer I realize that nothing in a computer is truly random. The issue occurred while watching videos in VLC, playing minecraft, watching videos in VLC while playing minecraft. No pattern emerged as to when the issue would occur. Sometimes within minutes, sometimes it would take hours. I would appreciate it if you continued reading, however. The issue has gotten far stranger and involves clean installs of Windows. |
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I had an odd issue with a video card I once bought off ebay... it worked, 99% of the time... but every so often, it would give weird artifacts on the screen while running some programs (most notably, America's Army)...
the way I solved it, was a firmware update for the graphics card... it took a while to locate the exact card, since the damned thing didn't come with any sort of documentation or instruction manuals. |
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I had an odd issue with a video card I once bought off ebay... it worked, 99% of the time... but every so often, it would give weird artifacts on the screen while running some programs (most notably, America's Army)... the way I solved it, was a firmware update for the graphics card... it took a while to locate the exact card, since the damned thing didn't come with any sort of documentation or instruction manuals. This video card has been running fine over the past 2 years, so I don't think it's an issue with firmware. The only change I can think of recently is performing a Windows update a couple of days ago. A new driver could have been installed at that time. Tried to rollback Windows to before the update and that didn't fix the issue. |
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reformat. My issue originally started out with the computer randomly hanging up and the screen turning green with lots of black dots.
Reinstalling video drivers resolved the issue for a while, but then it got worse. After the next hang and reboot, Windows refused to acknowledge that my video card existed. Resolution was stuck at 640x480 and image quality was very low, including lots of black dots everywhere in place of some textures and colors. This issue persisted in the BIOS splash screen, though oddly not in POST. Reinstalling drivers would not resolve this issue, so I opted to reinstall Window 7. Video resolution throughout the install process had not improved. Now I've reached a tricky part. Having installed Windows 7, I can't get passed the login screen. It refuses to accept my password. Initially I suspected that I had mistyped my password and reinstalled Windows again. No such luck. I tried a 3rd reinstall with no password set and I still can not log in. Every install has been a clean install from a legal Windows 7 disc. Does anyone have any ideas what is happening? reformatted. |
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As far as the video problems, it sure sounds to me like your video card is shot. Replace it. Check out NewEgg for good deals and an awesome selection. As far as the Windows login thing goes, I am kinda stumped. The only thing I could really think of is that possibly your keyboard has some physical problem, or Windows is misidentifying the layout, and isn't typing things correctly. Is it possible to create a user with no password when you install Windows (I haven't installed Windows on a computer since XP)? If so you could try that and then test all the keys on your keyboard in a text editor and then set a password for your account after you've confirmed that the keyboard is 100% and see if it lets you login.
ETA: Another possibility would be to set Windows to login automatically for your first boot and then revert it to manual login. (Of course, both this and my suggestion above are depending on the problem being with the initial login, and that it won't have have that problem after it's successfully logged in once) |
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reformat. My issue originally started out with the computer randomly hanging up and the screen turning green with lots of black dots.
Reinstalling video drivers resolved the issue for a while, but then it got worse. After the next hang and reboot, Windows refused to acknowledge that my video card existed. Resolution was stuck at 640x480 and image quality was very low, including lots of black dots everywhere in place of some textures and colors. This issue persisted in the BIOS splash screen, though oddly not in POST. Reinstalling drivers would not resolve this issue, so I opted to reinstall Window 7. Video resolution throughout the install process had not improved. Now I've reached a tricky part. Having installed Windows 7, I can't get passed the login screen. It refuses to accept my password. Initially I suspected that I had mistyped my password and reinstalled Windows again. No such luck. I tried a 3rd reinstall with no password set and I still can not log in. Every install has been a clean install from a legal Windows 7 disc. Does anyone have any ideas what is happening? reformatted. 
The paragraphs did help though! |
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Ill echo the same as everyone else. Buy a new video card, drop it in, get the newest firmware and see if that helps. If the issue is still hanging around have several reformats, that really only leaves hardware. If you don't want to buy a new card right off the bat, see if you can't borrow a loaner to test it out. |
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Vid card, as mentioned, and for good measure swap your memory out if you can or eliminate sticks to make sure that's not a component of the issues you're having. Memory going Tango Uniform can cause weird problems all over the Bus. This is true. I have seen some very strange things happen due to bad RAM! |
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My issue originally started out with the computer randomly hanging up and the screen turning green with lots of black dots. Reinstalling video drivers resolved the issue for a while, but then it got worse. After the next hang and reboot, Windows refused to acknowledge that my video card existed. Resolution was stuck at 640x480 and image quality was very low, including lots of black dots everywhere in place of some textures and colors. This issue persisted in the BIOS splash screen, though oddly not in POST. Reinstalling drivers would not resolve this issue, so I opted to reinstall Window 7. Video resolution throughout the install process had not improved. Now I've reached a tricky part. Having installed Windows 7, I can't get passed the login screen. It refuses to accept my password. Initially I suspected that I had mistyped my password and reinstalled Windows again. No such luck. I tried a 3rd reinstall with no password set and I still can not log in. Every install has been a clean install from a legal Windows 7 disc. Does anyone have any ideas what is happening? I got this far. Ok, as a programmer I realize that nothing in a computer is truly random. The issue occurred while watching videos in VLC, playing minecraft, watching videos in VLC while playing minecraft. No pattern emerged as to when the issue would occur. Sometimes within minutes, sometimes it would take hours. I would appreciate it if you continued reading, however. The issue has gotten far stranger and involves clean installs of Windows. I know nothing about computers. When you say hang up, I think phones. Just ribbin ya 
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Quoted: I would bet hardware issue. videocard or memory? prolly videocard. Look at the capacitors in your computer. are they all ok? Dell MOBOs were horrible about having caps burst causing all sorts of random issues. Turns out they had a bad batch because they wanted to save a fraction of a penny on each capacitor they bought. |
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I would bet hardware issue. videocard or memory? prolly videocard. Look at the capacitors in your computer. are they all ok? Dell MOBOs were horrible about having caps burst causing all sorts of random issues. Turns out they had a bad batch because they wanted to save a fraction of a penny on each capacitor they bought. If you have a Dell XPS with an NVIDIA card there is a class-action lawsuit that might get you $.20 for that POS. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I would bet hardware issue. videocard or memory? prolly videocard. Look at the capacitors in your computer. are they all ok? Dell MOBOs were horrible about having caps burst causing all sorts of random issues. Turns out they had a bad batch because they wanted to save a fraction of a penny on each capacitor they bought. If you have a Dell XPS with an NVIDIA card there is a class-action lawsuit that might get you $.20 for that POS. I don't buy Dell, I build my own systems. Just heard the horror stories from my buddy that was a contracted tech for them. He did the in-house repairs. He always had horror stories about how bad their hardware was, how bad the Corp people were about troubleshooting issues, and just how bad Dell sucks in general. |
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I would bet hardware issue. videocard or memory? prolly videocard. Look at the capacitors in your computer. are they all ok? Dell MOBOs were horrible about having caps burst causing all sorts of random issues. Turns out they had a bad batch because they wanted to save a fraction of a penny on each capacitor they bought. If you have a Dell XPS with an NVIDIA card there is a class-action lawsuit that might get you $.20 for that POS. I don't buy Dell, I build my own systems. Just heard the horror stories from my buddy that was a contracted tech for them. He did the in-house repairs. He always had horror stories about how bad their hardware was, how bad the Corp people were about troubleshooting issues, and just how bad Dell sucks in general. It wasn't just dell. Diebold had the same exact problem inside atm machines... ask me how I know... Worst job ever. Anyway the word on the street was: Industrial espionage from china. Diebold doesn't buy low quality parts. |
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I would bet hardware issue. videocard or memory? prolly videocard. Look at the capacitors in your computer. are they all ok? Dell MOBOs were horrible about having caps burst causing all sorts of random issues. Turns out they had a bad batch because they wanted to save a fraction of a penny on each capacitor they bought. If you have a Dell XPS with an NVIDIA card there is a class-action lawsuit that might get you $.20 for that POS. I don't buy Dell, I build my own systems. Just heard the horror stories from my buddy that was a contracted tech for them. He did the in-house repairs. He always had horror stories about how bad their hardware was, how bad the Corp people were about troubleshooting issues, and just how bad Dell sucks in general. It wasn't just dell. Diebold had the same exact problem inside atm machines... ask me how I know... Worst job ever. Anyway the word on the street was: Industrial espionage from china. Diebold doesn't buy low quality parts. Apple had a bunch of caps go bad in wireless AP's a few years back. I had heard they were from a batch that was damaged by seawater in shipment, paid off and trashed by insurance, and the batch then found it's way back to market somehow. Who knows, that was all just rumor I think. |
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Really you are going to have to start swapping in parts. Unless you can get into the system and find an actual error reported it's a bug hunt. You can try running memtest and see if you get any errors before the thing goes sideways. Start with the video card and PSU as these are going to be the most likely suspects (from my experience) From there get down to the lowest amount of memory you can. If the problem still exists swap out what is left with some you took out. Try the CPU if you have another that'll fit it, or ask a friend to borrow one (I think between me and my friends we probably have 10 computers is recently retired parts) After that your down to the mobo, guess where you go from there?  |
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Use another computer to download a live CD with OPHCrack on it, then boot into that. It'll load up and give you the passwords for all the accounts on the computer, that way you can at least verify that what you're typing in is what is supposed to be the password. |
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Quoted: Maybe bad clusters where the the OS is installed on the hard drive? I had that happen several years ago on a refurbed Dell. Generally if corruption on the disk is an issue you wont see bad video. You'll either get an error stating that corruption is detected or windows will BSOD when it tries to read that data (if it's critical) |
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Bad video card fan, Or heat sink is clogged with dust and lint. If you run it too much that way it will wreck the card. I had similar issues with my X1900 pro, I got lazy about cleaning it until it did just what you describe, Took the card out an blew it out with a compressor and it works fine again. If you computer uses an onboard it may just be shot.
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Maybe bad clusters where the the OS is installed on the hard drive? I had that happen several years ago on a refurbed Dell. Generally if corruption on the disk is an issue you wont see bad video. You'll either get an error stating that corruption is detected or windows will BSOD when it tries to read that data (if it's critical) Yea, the initial symptoms are important, and they point to a GPU failing, likely from heat related stress. Might be that it's a to-spec chip with inadequate cooling, or a substandard chip failing within normal operating parameters, but that's the fuzz and lockups to me. If we'da stopped there and replaced the video card with another, I bet the issues presumed to be with the OS would have gone away. This is a fairly common cascade of issues when one tries to troubleshoot a problem without sufficient spare hardware. Ya try to lean the problem towards sources you can fix with what you have on hand, and sometimes make stuff worse in unrelated ways. |
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Maybe bad clusters where the the OS is installed on the hard drive? I had that happen several years ago on a refurbed Dell. Generally if corruption on the disk is an issue you wont see bad video. You'll either get an error stating that corruption is detected or windows will BSOD when it tries to read that data (if it's critical) Wouldn't that depend on where the bad clusters are? |
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Maybe bad clusters where the the OS is installed on the hard drive? I had that happen several years ago on a refurbed Dell. Generally if corruption on the disk is an issue you wont see bad video. You'll either get an error stating that corruption is detected or windows will BSOD when it tries to read that data (if it's critical) Wouldn't that depend on where the bad clusters are? Anything's possible, been doing this shit for years and see new stuff all the time, but the description of symptoms is precisely what I'd expect to hear on a blown vid card, and completely not what I'd expect to hear on a dying HD. The only advantage to checking the HD at this point is that it can be done for free, but my gut feeling is that you're just checking tire pressure on a car that won't turn over. |
| Dogpiling on the "It sounds like the video card". First thing I would do is run Memtest86 (your reformatting/reinstallation issuse sound somewhat like some problems I had with my computehr a while back, turned out to be a bad stick of RAM). If that comes back fine, I'd try a new video card (and/or try your video card in another machine). |