So there I was, browsing the forums, and I clicked on someone's link to woggle when all of a sudden my computarbox screen went dark... still on, but displaying only black pixels. Ohnoes, thought I. I restart, and get some pretty bizarre visual errors... mostly dark screen, with a few white pixels in a sparse pattern... as the computer starts up and displays the windows logo, There's another weird visual with red stripes on a black background... I've never seen this before, and there's been no precedent for it on this computer. No new software installed recently, etc... I'm posting this from Safe Mode, where my screen functions perfectly (at a low resolution of course)... any ideas why starting in normal mode now only yields a blank screen?

Thanks!

video card overheat, maybe?

Yeah, I'm going to go with the video card overheating (maybe). Do you have any way to see your GPU's temp?

If it just happened out of the blue, I'd say video card overheat also. I'm no expert though, but do you see anything in odd in Safe mode (besides the normal crappy screen)?

No... but the vid card is disabled in Safe Mode...

I disabled it and restarted in normal mode, and windows runs fine... of course it's slower to render and I can't go to my max resolution... Gah.

So, if my video card has overheated, what ought I do?

Check that the fan is spinning and not all clogged up with dust, to start. (On the video card)

What's your card?

This.

Failing that, remove heatsink, clean, re-apply thermal paste.

Failing THAT, there's probably something with the card, try another.

I should have mentioned that this is a nVidia 7900 GTX, and it's in my laptop

Try reinstalling your drivers, they may have corrupted.

If that doesn't work, then I'd say your GTX is fubar :\

You can still open your laptop and check whatever cooling facilities are in place.

You are so screwed.

Ultra high end card + laptop = fail.


That does suck, though, hopefully you still have some warranty left?

If all else fails, you could try underclocking it just so it functions.

You have to use modified bios on most laptops to do that.

Ah, so Powerstrip couldn't pull that off?

Hmmm... whenever I download the driver updates from nVidia, the install wizard says that they do not apply to any of my current hardware, and exits... I'm downloading the forceware update for the 7 series cards, is that wRoNg?

Yep. Nvidia drivers on their site don't support laptop cards.

Yeah, you can't find updated drivers on nvidia's website. I needed updated drivers for my laptop's Quadro 570M (based off of the mobile version of the 8700 ...I think) because I couldn't play games like HL2 and its episodes (kept crashing). I found beta version of updated drivers off http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ . Yeah, playing games on a workstation card isn't the primary reason of having a workstation card, I know, but sometimes I want to stop using AutoCAD and blast away NPCs.

Its not a bad card at all at playing games, handles Bioshock, Enemy Territory, TF2 and FEAR quite well and at good resolutions. I not sure the variations between game-focused cards and CAD-focused cards. From what I've heard, the problem with a CAD-focused cards in a game setting is that they tend to render many things at once even if it hurts framerate. But not to derail the thread...