Hey guys, just a quick question to see if you have any suggestions on what could be the problem (I'm assuming GFX here).

Basically the past couple of days when I switch my pc on, it starts up with a lot of fan noise first time (now last time it did this, the fan on my gfx card expired and I had to get a new card). Once booted, it's fine, but the first time I boot I get graphics issues, noticeable when I start WoW. Basically I get little weird black dots where graphics aren't loading properly (always in the same place in an animation) and it will make my pc freeze every few seconds.

If I then reboot, it will reboot with no extra fan noise and will work perfectly after that. Even if I switch off for half an hour, then start up, I get no noise and no problems. But it's just that first reboot. Now even if there's nothing majorly wrong, obviously I don't wish to be messing around all the time rebooting straight away and I certainly don't want to risk another card failure if I can avoid it (or at least buy a new one first! hehe)

So anyone heard of anything like this, or got any ideas to fix it? I'm going to open it up later and just try to move wires around, check connections and remove any dust and if that still doesn't work I was planning on formatting soon anyway.

That's weird. Yea, I'd definitely open it up while it's running and see if you can see anything physically. Blow it out with some canned air. I doubt that'll fix it, but it can't hurt. Usually any kind of graphical artifacts implies physical damage to the card...but if it works after you reboot I don't know. Do you have a spare graphics card to swap in? If it still happens with the spare card it could be your motherboard. Or switch your graphics card into another pc and see if it has the same problem.

If you do decide to swap out cards, be sure to uninstall your graphics drivers before shutting down and swapping cards.

Hmmm could try that, have my old 6600 somewhere... job for tomorrow methinks! I'd try my card in Mole's pc but that thing is so temperamental I don't want to be held responsible for killing it!

epic

This could be an issue with a driver. Try some older driver.

Will try that also, though I haven't changed driver in... oh far too long probably hehe. Months.

So how did it go? A faulty unit could cause a strain on the Power Supply and eventually killing both.

Sorry for the late reply. Drivers didn't seem to make a difference and so far I've been too lazy to search out the old graphics card. However, odd thing, the past two days it has been much warmer (like 5 degrees instead of -2) which means my flat is warmer (no central heating) and the past two days it hasn't made the horrible noises when switching it on, or needed rebooting to get rid of graphical glitches.

Is there any chance the cold could have been affecting it?

heh....anything is possible, I guess, though electronics tend to prefer cold rather than dislike it.

Buy a can on of pressurized air and spray that sucker. And the psu too while yer at it.

Bah well scratch that, it's 7 degrees today and it just made the noises starting up again. I'll open it up again later and spray it/check the wiring etc.

Ok new problem. After a couple of days with no loud noises or anything 'wrong' and after I have sprayed it with compressed air, it decided this morning to tell me "Since Windows was first activated your hardware has changed significantly and Windows must be activated again". If I try to, it fails.

If I go to My Computer>Properties, it doesn't show things correctly. It basically says:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+
2.21 GHz, 2.00 Gb of RAM
Physical Address Extension

So the gfx card isn't showing at all. Do you think this is a fucked card, or a fucked mobo? (I tried restarting btw and no difference)

The GPU doesnt show there. You have to open device manager to see it.

From there click on the Hardware tab, then open device manager and look under display adapters.

By the sound of it, it seems to me you have mainboard issues. Since gpu doesnt trigger reactivating but a mainboard change does.

I'm sure I used to see my gpu there... either way it doesn't help, i checked Device Manager this morning as well (forgot to mention this) and it shows nothing. Literally, not one thing. Not even a damned serial bus. I'm guessing it is the Mobo, particularly after your comment, as it is old and has one faulty RAM slot so more could be on the way out.

Gonna try a format tonight but I'm thinking I may be ordering a new Mobo tomorrow night. Can't afford it but need the pc to make extra cash *sigh*

I'm actually blaming Labtech cameras right now. Mine has been playing up the past few weeks, freezing or just going white when trying to video chat, so I decided to finally download/install new drivers. It didn't install properly, and it is since then my pc has screwed up. But I can't bloody tell because if I try to Sys Restore, it won't restore until the damned windows is activated, and it won't bloody activate over the internet so I might as well just wait til I've formatted rather than 'waste' an activation.

I hate PCs.

edit: ok last night reformatted, got as far as installing SP2 and nothing else other than vital updates/antivirus/drivers. Was fine last night, restarted many times and no problem.

This morning I get the 'hardware changed/activate' message again (this time it actually lets me activate though) and so I'm currently installing SP3. Any ideas? I really really hope it's a virus or something daft like that, rather than a dead mobo