Did my friend blow his GPU?

[g4m3rof1337]

My friend loading COD4, and the menu was stretched and blurry, he restarted, and couldn't get Windows to work, so he rolled back the drivers, and got it to work, booted into COD4 and got a DirectX error, and I believe he installed the most recent stable drivers, and they didn't do anything, he says the computer can't handle his native resolution of 1680x1050, but it works fine in Safe Mode with the low resolution.


He's running Vista 32 bit, and I think his GPU is one of the first 8800GTSs.



Sorry if this doesn't run together, I typed down as many keywords as possible when we were on the phone.



Thanks.

 

[Seth]

I presume that he has a 22" screen then? If he is trying to run it at 1680X1050. A stretched a blurry menu generally suggests incorrect resolution.

 

[bullzi]

Can you take a screenshot or a photo of the problem?

 

[g4m3rof1337]

I'll ask him for some pictures, but I also think he reinstalled Windows and still had the problem, so.


What type of pictures do you need to see?


Thanks.

 

[bullzi]

K, well if I could at least see some pictures we could figure out if the card is artifacting or not..

 

[Kornowski]

If it's blury it often means the refresh rate isn't set correctly.

 

[bullzi]

If it's blury it often means the refresh rate isn't set correctly.

Ya, it seems to me that the res. is set wrong or that the refresh rate is set wrong as you said..

 

[g4m3rof1337]

I'm going to have my friend create an account and post in here.

 

[Cry Havoc]

Hi there. I'm said "friend" that was referenced in the OP.

So here's exactly what happened. Everything was working fine on my computer. I went to load CoD4 and saw the blurry screen, as stated. When I rebooted, I got a blank screen at the windows logon with "No Signal" being displayed by the display (a 22" Acer LCD).

Here are the steps I've taken to isolating the problem:

1. I reinstalled Nvidia drivers. No effect.
2. I rolled back the drivers to their previous state. This worked until I tried to play CoD4. When I rebooted, it went back to the above problem.
3. I then pulled all drivers and downloaded/installed the WHQL certified 178.24 drivers. No effect.

All the while, the computer will fully boot in safe mode and I can use it with no problems.

I proceeded to reinstall Windows Vista Premium. This worked for a while -- that is, the computer would run fine. That is, until I installed the drivers for the 8800 GTS (512mb). Then it's back to the old problem.

At this point, I'm wondering if there is a chance a complete format would solve the problem. I think it's either a virus, my power supply, the mobo, or the vid card, but I honestly have no way of knowing which is the problem to this point.

Any feedback is appreciated.

 

[Kornowski]

I'd run ATI Tool for a little while, see if the card artifacts. Which it may if the card is faulty.