corrupt XP?

[Eku]

I recently tried to install a 6600GT video card, but got no POST, no mouse, nothin'. Here's the thread. I RMA'd the card, but in the meantime, I read that one of the fixes for the problem I had was to reinstall Windows XP. I don't want to unless I know its corrupt.

What I did, in order:
-flashed BIOS
-disk cleanup
-defragged
-cleared CMOS

Strange behavior since the defrag step was completed:
-lots of old programs (nearly half) in the start menu are highlited as "new programs"
-lost calculator and solitaire game that came with XP
-DVD's stutter and stop after playing for a while (prob'ly heat related, but..?)

These are minor, easily fixable annoyances, but do they indicate something larger? I've not experienced any other problems.

[Kintak]

How long have you been using that installation of XP? A reinstallation can correct alot of registry, driver, and other miscellaneous problems. What is your reason for resisting? I can only think of losing time, losing small customizations, and having to reactivate the cd-key if necessary.
You can transfer 'my documents' and even your desktop shortcuts if you don't overwrite the old install.
Every minor error in Windows is a premonition of horror. It just depends how long you have until that horror arrives. Every installation of Windows is automatically doomed from the beginning, but a new installation has more life in it than an old sick decrepid installation.

Anyway, we need more information.
1. Can you start up into safe mode? I assume you can startup XP since you mentioned the mouse was missing. I'm not sure why a video card would effect the mouse... It is possible you uninstalled more than you thought.
2. What do you mean disk cleanup? Do you mean the little program that it throws at you when you have 100MB of space left, or that you actively went around deleting things?
3. Did you plug your monitor into the card? You might have plugged it into a socket to a card integrated into the BIOS.
4. Is there a card integrated into the BIOS? Have you tried using that to boot up, and then install the card's drivers?
5. Does your new card support multiple screens? It is possible that it thinks it is the second screen in the setup. Did you uninstall the old cards drivers, or at least disable it? The new card may think the old card is still in and acting as the 1st screen. This happened to my brother.
6. Can you actually boot into Windows?

Like I said, fresh installs are pretty easy to recover from. Its formatting an entire drive full of stuff that's annoying, but you can choose not to do that.

[Eku]

How long have you been using that installation of XP? A reinstallation can correct alot of registry, driver, and other miscellaneous problems. What is your reason for resisting? I can only think of losing time, losing small customizations, and having to reactivate the cd-key if necessary.
You can transfer 'my documents' and even your desktop shortcuts if you don't overwrite the old install.
Every minor error in Windows is a premonition of horror. It just depends how long you have until that horror arrives. Every installation of Windows is automatically doomed from the beginning, but a new installation has more life in it than an old sick decrepid installation.

Dang...I never knew. Well, I've only had this install for about a year and a half or so - it's really not that old. I am concerned about the numerous shut-down's caused by not really dealing with the MX4000 issue.

Anyway, we need more information.
1. Can you start up into safe mode? I assume you can startup XP since you mentioned the mouse was missing. I'm not sure why a video card would effect the mouse... It is possible you uninstalled more than you thought.
2. What do you mean disk cleanup? Do you mean the little program that it throws at you when you have 100MB of space left, or that you actively went around deleting things?
3. Did you plug your monitor into the card? You might have plugged it into a socket to a card integrated into the BIOS.
4. Is there a card integrated into the BIOS? Have you tried using that to boot up, and then install the card's drivers?
5. Does your new card support multiple screens? It is possible that it thinks it is the second screen in the setup. Did you uninstall the old cards drivers, or at least disable it? The new card may think the old card is still in and acting as the 1st screen. This happened to my brother.
6. Can you actually boot into Windows?

Just to clarify: I'm now working quite well on the MX4000. The little things I've done, such as properly uninstalling and disabling the onboard video and installing the latest VIA chipset drivers have helped beyond my wildest hopes. I really thought I had the worst card in the world. Turns out I had a bad system administrator. :o I've only had a couple minor glitches. So to get to the above info:
1,6. I can boot to safemode and/or Windows with the MX4000, but not the 6600GT - I get nothing at all, no signal.
2. disk cleanup as in the program in Accessories, not random file deletion. I did that once with my old machine, and spent the next 30 hours fixing it.
3, 5. Card does support double monitor setup. Plugged monitor into card, plugged it into second port as well (had a DVI with adaptor) just to check. Heck, I even plugged it into the onboard card just to see if I something was going on...nothin'! It's not an SLI setup, only one AGP port, and I made sure to uninstall the old card.
4. did not install the 6600GT drivers prior to putting in the card. Could this set up my motherboard to recognize it?

Kinda gettin' into the realm of the video card here - the moderator might move us. :eek: But the question I had regarding Windows has been taken care of...I'll be doing a reinstallation soon as a matter of good maintenance. Thanks, Kintak. (A post by Catweazle gives some good advice on this too.)

[Catweazle]

Hi Eku,

I've posted a further response to your display card topic ;)

Your Windows problems I would suspect are the result of 'net nasty' intruders. A format/fresh install is quite possibly the best approach to take, and afterwards you should ensure that you regularly follow the advice you'll find in the 'Pinned' topics in out 'Viruses, Spyware and other Nasties' forum section.

[Kintak]

It just occured to me that I passed right over the most obvious answer to your video card problem.
Obviously your new card won't have drivers yet. It came with a CD though, right?

Uninstall the old video card and drivers,
shut down,
put your new card in,
activate your integrated card,
connect your monitor to the integrated card's socket
start up windows
install the drivers for your new card from the CD
restart when it tells you to
deactivate your integrated card
plug your monitor into your new card

Oh, and if you DO reinstall WinXP, you might as well make a backup copy of C:\Documents and Settings\(your login) and move that over to the new installation. Don't forget to check for viruses first.
I found another downside to reinstalling windows though. If you don't copy your old registry over, alot of your programs won't work and you'll need to reinstall them, but if you do, then you will have that old cluttered registry that was part of the poplem in the first place.

Last thing: try to reinstall to the same HDD. I made the mistake of putting my new installation on my newer HDD, and let me tell you, it is a real b**** to try to move a few old programs over to the newer drive, and even harder to switch both HDDs between master and slave. I advise wholeheartedly against installing to a different drive unless you have a lot of experience with registry and .ini files, and with HDD jumper management.

[Catweazle]

Kintak, that's way off beam!

Please see the post I made a short while ago in Eku's original display card topic. It contains the correct and 'safe' way to change from onboard video to an add-in card.

[Eku]

Your Windows problems I would suspect are the result of 'net nasty' intruders.

NOOOO! :sad:
I 'spose now is the time to mention that my wife almost fell for a Paypal phishing scam a few weeks ago; got as far as entering her screen name and password into the fake site, but luckily didn't enter a credit card number. We did all the correct bank/card stuff, and for the computer I ran Spybot immediately afterward, and did a virus check, found nothing, but...

Thanks for your help. (Now where did I put that XP disc, anyway... :?: )