[RESOLVED] Can't figure out if I should replace the motherboard or my video card.

Hi everyone, I'm back with another fun computer problem.
I'm not sure if I should replace the video card or the motherboard, I had to reinstall Windows XP recently because the registry was corrupted and the main hard disk kept disappearing, I got it all set up today and I've noticed a recurring problem. A few days ago and today I notice that when I restart/boot the computer the screen is all scrambled from the bootup screens then into windows, today I faced the same thing but when It got into windows it looked fine until I clicked the start menu then I noticed that that looked odd too, it was kind of transparent. The problem is pretty intermittent, I've had other problems such as, when I looked in the system logs I noticed that it said something about 5 errors from the dvd drive and 2 days before that there were quite a few page faults from the 2nd partition on the main HD. Again intermittent errors, I'm checking the ram right now, but overall I have no clue what's broken?

I suggest you start with video card.I had similar problem, I would watch
a DVD and have small dots dance all over screen. also when viewing here
I would have layers of different colors. Changed video card all is fine :)

Did you install the motherboard chipset drivers ?

assuming you have a video chip on the mobo:

Does your mobo have onboard video to check rather than using the video card ?

assuming you have a video card:

Did you get the latest drivers for your video card ?

What motherboard make/model?
What video card make/model?
Have you replaced the ide cables?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NooNoo

What motherboard make/model?
What video card make/model?
Have you replaced the ide cables?

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Sorry I left out the details. I have an Asus A8N-SLI Premium motherboard(Bios ver.1009) With an Athlon 3700+(San Diego), 2gigs of OCZ ram, Evga Nvidia Geforce 7800GT video card, two Seagate SATA hard disks (160GB and 250GB)
Soundblaster X-FI xtrememusic soundcard, Windows XP SP2.

And no I haven't replaced any cable, I did try swapping the SATA drives(plugging them into ports 3-4 instead of 1-2)
I ran memtest and it did 15 passes with no errors. Right now my system locks up pretty frequently I forgot to mention that yesterday it rebooted itself and when windows came back up it said it had a critical error and it explained it was because of a device driver. If need be I have pictures of the scrambled screens i've been getting.

Oh yes, I have the latest chipset and recent video drivers.
No I don't have onboard video.

ok first thing to do is turn off auto restart - right click my computer, properties, advanced, startup and shutdown button and uncheck the box... next time it will blue screen properly, make a note of the exact message.

Did the event viewer give you which device driver? How about an event id?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NooNoo

ok first thing to do is turn off auto restart - right click my computer, properties, advanced, startup and shutdown button and uncheck the box... next time it will blue screen properly, make a note of the exact message.

Did the event viewer give you which device driver? How about an event id?

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No, I have a screenshot that shows where the logs it wrote are at, but evertime the computers in windows it hangs in 4mins.

did you turn off auto restart? can we see the screenshot?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NooNoo

did you turn off auto restart? can we see the screenshot?

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I'm trying to turn that off now, and I assume you want to see both the scarmbled screens and the one that shows where the logs are? How do I post them?

NooNoo - would starting in Safe Mode allow him to access the logs and write down what is there or send it?

Might stop the problems while he accesses the stuff.

I was just in safe mode but I can't find the logs?

In the system admin panel, I was looking at some other logs and I noticed more disk paging faults on the 2nd partition of the first drive again.

Here's the pics, in reduced color, I can't get the one that shows where the logs are at I can't get the file size down far enough to send it.

EDIT: I turned off auto restart like you said NooNoo, and my comp crashed and here's the message from the blue screen:

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen,
restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sre any new hardware or software is properly installed if this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, pressf8 to select advanced startup options, and then select safe mode.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000D1 (0x00000004, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xBA72B04B)

*** nvata.sys- Address BA72B04B base at BA718000, datestamp 444d72c9

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your administrator or technical support group for further assistance.

_END of what the blue screen said_

nvata.sys is part of the chipset drivers (and therefore your sata hdds) have you been to nvidia for nforce drivers? Which version?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NooNoo

nvata.sys is part of the chipset drivers (and therefore your sata hdds) have you been to nvidia for nforce drivers? Which version?

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I did have an older version on but then I put on the 6.86 version of the Nforce4 drivers.

Edit: The system was working fine for 3 days, it didn't start going crazy again until yesterday.

if you just uninstall those drivers and let windows load it's own drivers, what happens?