Extreme Video Issues

[emjlr3]

Was not sure where to post this, but here goes:

Comp was working fine two days ago, and yesterday, then today when I was playing around with the World Editor for WC3, it started having major problems

Started by when in wc3(windowed mode) while testing maps from the World Editor, the game would get really pixely like, almost like when you see artifacts when playing a video game(my graphics card is not overclocked, and I have never had such issues before today with it)

while this would happen(would also happen when just viewing the map in the WE(not trigger or object editor - for those of you who are familiar with it), but the actual terrain itself - while this pixel stuff would happen, the comp would suddenly freeze, screen would go black for a few seconds (all the while the comp is loading), then come back

this went on for a little while, then the comp crashed, and when trying to reboot it all I got was a grey screen - the comp would load and load, but nothing would display on the screen but grey(not black as though the monitor were off)

after trying to reboot a few times and letting is sit for a few hours, I finally got it to start showing a few things, like the windows screen once it starts to load my desktop, or the mouse pointer and loading wait fx

then it finally booted all the way, but some of my toolbar(bottom right) items did not load

so I ran an adaware scan, and a virus scan, and found nothing, mind you the PC is still acting goofy at this time

so I did a system restore to the 27th, rebooted, everything loaded ok

however, there are still some strange issues going on:

• when loading, the Windows loading screen never appeared, at the screen before it goes to my desktop, it went black a few times(while still loading)
  
• when scrolling, for instance on a web page, or in a folder, it gets really strange, very hard to explain, the folder/webpage/etc. never moves, but at the bottom or top(depending on which way im scrolling) it looks as though that in a very small section its doing all the scrolling all on top of each other, very weird
  
• still goes black when trying to do this from time to time, then comes back
  
• seems to be generally slower then before
  
• when trying to drag something, say a window, it like freezes up in mid drag, I then have to minimize then bring it back up to restore it
  
• it seems to be loading nonstop, for instance right now all i have open is FireFox, but the comp is still loading, never seems to stop - though now that I look again its not loading now
  

Here is my system specs as per dxdiag:

mind you nothing like this has ever happened before

it worked 2 days ago

worked fine last night, I installed Civ4 and Warlords, and played for a while - no problems

then today while playing with World Editor, all hell broke lose....

any thoughts or ideas?????

thanks for the help

(** I just noticed when scrolling through this edit screen for the post it does not screw up) - must be just certain scrolling

[Andrew55]

When I started to read, I said to myself this is a certain dead graphics card. But as I read on, I doubted it. While this could very well be a dying graphics card, it just could be a reformat of your OS that will cure your problem. Reinstall vista (your only choice, I'm afraid) and see if you still get the problem. If you do, your gpu is gone. Hope reinstalling your OS fixes it though.

[Michael Marley]

...it just could be a reformat of your OS that will cure your problem. Reinstall vista (your only choice, I'm afraid)...

I had a look at HP's website, and it looks like they have XP drivers for this laptop, so I would recommend installing XP. Alot of times, strange things will happen in Vista that did not happen with XP.

[emjlr3]

I am going to try to run Linux from a boot disc to see if everything works as expected - if so, I will try the reinstallation of Vista route, otherwise, its probably hardware related, in which case my VC is probably shot, and I am S.O.L.