the geforce blues

[WillStompCpus]

I'm new to the board, so hi all.

On to the good stuff, my cpu p4 2.0a 1 gig pc800 rambus, intel d850emv2 mobo, and a geforce 4600ti. I built this cpu about a year ago and also bought an OEM windows xp pro, i registered it and it has worked great until recently. I built another cpu and installed the same win xp copy (on accident meant to install a "free" version) i put in the cd-key i had registered with. I realized my mistake, and reinstalled it with the "free" version (which works problem free).

Ok so i go to turn on my original system, and windows load bar runs, log in screen comes up, LOCK UP... restart... repeat... I boot to safe mode, I start up in 640x480 4 bit color and it works fine. To my surpise I get a message that my windows XP oem needs to be registered, so i assume this was the problem.. ok i register again. Next i get a error message "system can't find NvCpl.dll" I know thats a nvidia file so i find the latest drivers and install them.... Restart, no more error message, but i can't change out of 640x480 4 bit color without the system locking up.... I turned down hardware acceleration all the way and i change to 1024x769 32bit color 85hz refresh, no problem. I've tried every single nvidia driver i can find, i've even used the original install cd and NOTHING WORKS with hardware acceleration on! I really don't want to restore windows if anyone has any suggestions I would be forever grateful.
-Will

[cscgal]

Hmm ... I would just do a system restore at this point but that's just me! Have you checked the error log in the Administrative Tools section of the control panel? When you install NVidia drivers, do you uninstall the old ones first or just upgrade the existing ones? I doubt this has anything to do with anything, but does DirectX show up with any problems? Nevermind, it's definitely the NVidia detonators, eh?

I have the same video card as you and when I had an AMD Athlon XP it would constantly restart itself (10+ times / day regardless of what I was doing) unless I disabled hardware acceleration. Now the card is in my P4 and I haven't had any problems since.

I'll get back to you if I come across anything. Sorry I can't be more help right now.

[WillStompCpus]

Just for "fun" I just unistalled the driver, then installed the lastest detonator drivers, what fun that was, windows started up and the screen literally flashed to black every 2 seconds then back to windows, then restart, so on and so on.

Think there could be anything physically wrong with the video card?

I smell a restore soon....just so many things to back-up :( (about 240 gigs)

[cscgal]

Physically wrong? Very possible ... now that it's summer, maybe it's overheating? Did this happen as a result of playing around with stuff, changing anything, or just out of no where one day?

[WillStompCpus]

yea today, all i did was take the rdram blank sticks out to temporary use in another cpu, didn't even touch the video card, though. Then, poof no workie(i did put them back in)... summertime doesn't bother my many many fans

[cscgal]

Open up your computer and take out the ram sticks. Make sure there's no dirt and dust in the slot and that the bottom of the sticks can make good contact with the slots in the motherboard. Then, very carefully put them back in and double and even triple check to make sure they're in all the way.

Bad RAM or ram incorrectly seated in the motherboard has been known to cause weird computer problems such as random restarts, etc. Never heard of it screwing up video card drivers, though ... but it can cause restarts and freezes.