Serious GPU Problem with Vertical Lines from boot

[{M.o.D.}-Desolator_Lt]

Sup ppl?

I got a serious problem with my Toshiba Qosmio G35 AV650.

After playing Crysis and CoD4 demos, I wanted to play Gears of War. I installed it successfully, and launched the game. After about a few seconds, ma laptop seized up, with some bright red colour boxes on the screen. I plugged it out and removed the battery, then turned it on again.

Immediately as I booted, I saw some green vertical lines on the screen, but in the section where I can select Safe Mode and so on, didn't have the vertical lines, but some of the letters had a flashing white box around them. I tried to load windows normally, the boot screen with the scrolling thing had the vertical lines again, then after the boot screen, the BSOD flashed, then the laptop restarted.

I tried to start in Safe Mode and it worked, but the vertical lines were still there. The Display Setting didn't have any information about my video card, but in the properties I saw VGASave. I went to I checked device manager and saw Standard VGA, I went to the properties and roll back drivers, then restart.

The laptop started normally, with the lines. But strangely, I could still go up to 1900 x 1200 resolution at 32 bit, and I even played videos okay (I didn't try any games though), but in the Display Setting, it still showed VGASave enabled. I disabled it (my God) and restarted, Safe Mode or Normally wouldn't start, the BSOD just flashed. I connected it to an old monitor and boot up the laptop and it re-enabled VGASave.

I tried booting without the two hard drives and the vertical lines were still there. I installed some newer nVidia drivers and the PC would boot normally, but after the boot screen, the entire screen is black with no lines, and it seems the PC isn't seized up. I still cleaned the drive and reinstalled XP, no help.

I looked in the resources tab for VGASave and it showed some conflicts with what appears to be an Intel onboard video card, at Root Poor 27A. Maybe this is the problem, but I was thinking that maybe the video drivers in the CMOS got currupted somehow. Can you people help me out please? (assuming you've read this far)

I assume Gears of War will have some probs, since it's a console port. If you need anything else just ask.

Specs:

Processor: Intel Core Duo T2500 / 2 GHz

RAM: 1 GB DDR2

Graphics: nVidia GeForce Go 7600 256 MB GDDR3, PCI Express x16

Motherboard: Mobile Intel 945PM Express

Thanks in advance guys. I hope I can get my awesome laptop working again :)

-Des

[®®®]

Vertical Lines indicate that either your GPU or the VGA RAM is fried.

[{M.o.D.}-Desolator_Lt]

Vertical Lines indicate that either your GPU or the VGA RAM is fried.

Thanks for the reply. But one more thing, if the VRAM is damaged, is it possible for me to let the GPU use a portion of the system RAM instead?

By the way, here are a few pics of the problrm:

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/5558/p1010034rk0.th.jpg

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/8919/p1010035pf7.th.jpg

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/4592/pic1sz6.th.jpg

-Des

Edited February 24, 2008 by {M.o.D.}-Desolator_Lt

[Guest matter]

Vertical Lines indicate that either your GPU or the VGA RAM is fried.

Hi - same problem here with Geforce Go 7600 in my Acer 5650.

Disabled the device in hardware manager (after booting in VGA mode to get the thing to work) and the laptop works OK (using VGAsave software driver and main RAM).

Currently in 1024 x 768 32bit. Interestingly, if I change to 16bit the lines reappear. So im not sure if its ONLY the GPU or GPU RAM. It's definately not the main RAM as I have physically removed it and tested it with a different set.

ANy clues?

And can this be fixed - the laptop is not in warrenty any more.

Thanks,

Mat

[Guest matter]

UPDATE

Well I deleted my drivers and used guru3d driversweeper to remove it. Installed the original Acer Nvidia drivers again (I hadn't ever used a different one). Lines still aparent but will playing around with the driver settings in windows I have now got it working using the NVidia drivers from Acer - no lines.

Got no method as I did so many things, but perhaps disabling the device, uninstalling all the drivers, reinstalling and then reenabling the device would work. Need to reboot to Safe mode after each step. Give it a try.

Mat.

[Guest Guest]

Final Update

Turns out this is an ACER fan management issue. Sometimes the fan just doesn't work, GPU goes over 100 deg C and hangs (not surprising). Could be a hardware issue with the fan but having searched the forums it seems that ACER has some hidden software for it's fan management that is 'flaky', even on XP.

I just run Speedfan on startup and when the GPU goes over 65 deg C and isn't being managed (when working the fan keeps GPU to 60-65deg C) I have to do a hard shut down, unplug, and start up. Reboot doesn't cue it.

Mat.

[Guest Guest]

I am wondering if just replacing the video card and downloading the drivers would fix the problem, ive been stuck on this issue for about a month and i am not even sure if its the video card or the motherboard. Also the vertical lines still appear and it just freezes if i let it run normally, does not even get to windows.

[Guest Nismo91]

Vertical Lines indicate that either your GPU or the VGA RAM is fried.

i got a 01/2005 acer travelmate 4000 with ati 9700.

after 1.5 years of usage, it has vertical line in the screen. will permanently there.

now, it has 5 different colour vertical line on the right side of the LCD. firstly i thought the GPU is fried, but my uncle said, for mine, it is the LCD inverter fails.

looking at your picture, looks like the VGA card is not normal.

[zipper]

I'd bet on broken memory.