I have the following graphics card and system:

nvidia Geforce FX5200

P4 3.06GHz
Asus P4S8X-X Motherboard
80 Gig HArdrive
SOUNDMAX Soundcard


I seem to be having problems with my graphics card. While im working on the PC my monitor screen just suddenly goes blank
i can hear PC running via background noises etc. Initially i thought i was having problems with my monitor so i switched
it with a completely different monitor and am having the same problems.

That is when i realised it is a grahics card problem. I have opened my computer and made sure that the graphics card has been
placed in properly. Still i am having the same problem. All latest drivers have been installed and the problem still persists.
I have messed around with all the settings. i.e my power settings are all set to never and monitor refresh rate is set to its lowest
and yet the problem still exists. This is becoming really frustrating:mad: . I would like to know what measures i can take which i have
not yet taken which may help with this problem. Could this be because of a bug in the graphics card or any bios setting problems? all help will be greatly appreciated

regards

oh and one more thing :
im running windows xp home; service pack 1 and the problem started as soon as i installed xp on the comp.

Try this, completly remove the driver from device manager and then reboot your machine cancel any attempts by windows to install a driver. then get the latest drivers for your card and reinstall them. thats about all i can think of as you seem to have tried everything else.

I agree with Redshift, your problem is driver-based; the reason being that your nVidia card is much newer than the drivers supplied with Windows XP. Download the newest ones from nVidia. Since nVidia drivers are "unified" (one size fits all), they have to be new enough to include your exact graphics chip or trouble will ensue.

I do disagree with Redshift on one point, though. In this case, it's no longer necessary to uninstall the old drivers before installing the new ones, especially with Windows XP. The nVidia installer takes care of that for you. It certainly makes life easier!

ok guys thnx for ur advice.

ive just installed the new driver from the nvidia website.i did the long the way round (red shifts way) just to be on the safe side. any way ive done that we'll see what goes on, because its random cant tell when the problem occurs.

It dosent happen when playing games which is confusing oh i dont know see what happens.
Thnx for the help though i really appreciate it. i'll keep u guys posted

ok today i was just browsing around the web listening to music and it happened. The screen went blank on me. i could hear the music but could get the screen to come. only after a restart did i manage to get the screen back on. mm very puzzling dont know what to do :-|

hope u guys can help im stuck.

Your graphics card might have gone bad, the same thing happened with me with my Geforce 4 Ti 4200.

I have to agree, however there is one more thing you can try. Run your computer with the case open for a while and see if the problem goes away if it does it's likely to be heat related. Do you have the option to try the card in another machine for a while to determine if the fault is on the card it'self or a Computer or O/S problem. What about putting you're original O/S back on the machine to see if the problem goes away or maybe re-install Windows XP. I know re-installing is a pain but it's better than buying a new card which you don't need.

Good Luck

thnx for the advice will do that...

I was reading around and i did a memtest today on my computer and i got a lot of errors for my memory.
EEC Errors = 0
Errors = around 7420

could this be a problem which is making my comp screen go blank?? is there anyway i can recover my RAM or do i have to scrap it and get some new RAM.
Another thing is when i start the comp, i hear a loud fan noise is that like normal??
From looking at the BIOS my heating settings are:
MB Temperature : 27.5C/ 81.5F
CPU Temprature: 53C/ 127F

CPU Fan Speed : 3214RPM
Vcore Voltage : 1.58V

Are these temps normal if not how can i make them normal? im realy crap at this. thnx for all the help so far it is greatly appreciated.

Those temps should be ok. The CPU temp is a bit hot (should really be < 50), but 53C shouldn't be a problem. I'd replace the RAM if I were you. Bad RAM can cause random window errors like that.

Maybe you should download a temparature monitor utility and see what the CPU temparature is like under load.