Blue screen of Death

[mick]

Over the last month or so, my machine was crashing on boot up and also after bootup with the infamous blue screen of death, suggesting either hardware or a harware driver was the culprit. I remembered a couple of months ago the driver for my video card was upgraded. According to the bulletin boards newest isn't always best So I rolled back my old driver, still no cigar, the BSOD was still making regular appearances, I still suspected the problem was with the video card or driver. I bit the bullet and replaced the video card from a spare computer I keep for parts. Bingo problem solved. I was getting ready to trash my old machine, bloody old like me, but with upgraded RAM, USB ports and network card, still fine for what I want it for. I am sure if I took this problem to a computer "tech" the usual response is to reload the operating system and all the inconvenience that entails Last time I took my machine to "an expert" it lived at the shop for 4 weeks and never satisfactorily solved the problem. I suppose there are good techs out there, but they seem to be hard to find.

[Psyber]

Over the last month or so, my machine was crashing on boot up and also after bootup with the infamous blue screen of death, suggesting either hardware or a harware driver was the culprit. I remembered a couple of months ago the driver for my video card was upgraded. According to the bulletin boards newest isn't always best So I rolled back my old driver, still no cigar, the BSOD was still making regular appearances, I still suspected the problem was with the video card or driver. I bit the bullet and replaced the video card from a spare computer I keep for parts. Bingo problem solved. I was getting ready to trash my old machine, bloody old like me, but with upgraded RAM, USB ports and network card, still fine for what I want it for. I am sure if I took this problem to a computer "tech" the usual response is to reload the operating system and all the inconvenience that entails Last time I took my machine to "an expert" it lived at the shop for 4 weeks and never satisfactorily solved the problem. I suppose there are good techs out there, but they seem to be hard to find.

The last time I ran into this it turned out to be faulty RAM on a "Sparkle" videocard. There had been mysterious problems with that computer right from the start that my IT company's OEM supplier could not find - they had tried replacing various other components - and it was only total video failure that pointed to the card. Once the card was replaced all was fine.

As it was 3 days outside warranty. "Sparkle" were not interested. The OEM gave us one of their demo products as a good will gesture, and neither us not the OEM have used that brand of card again.