[jnovocaine]

I've got an issue with my HP Pavilion desktop (model a350n) running XP. The screen is all scrambled at boot up. It appears to be zero's and dashes everywhere. No color, just black screen with DOS based characters. I initially thought it was my monitor, so I swapped it with a good monitor but had the same results. I'm guessing the hdd went dead (or maybe the video card), but I'm no expert. I have two 160 GB drives in a master/slave config, so I assume I can boot up off the slave drive, but I can't even access the set-up (F2) since the screen is jumbled. I'm not sure what to do and figured I'd come here for help. The computer is out of warranty.

If I'm unable to get this fixed here in the forum, does anyone have any good recommendations (other than Fry's Electronics) to get this fixed? I live in the Silicon Valley (San Jose, CA).

Thanks!

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Boot the PC, keep tapping F8 (possibly F5) until you get options, choose safe mode, if it loads then re-install the video adapter drivers

[Retired Tech]

Boot the PC, keep tapping F8 (possibly F5) until you get options, choose safe mode, if it loads then re-install the video adapter drivers

[jnovocaine]

None of the F keys do anything. Tried F8, F5, F2. No response. Just a scrambled collection of zero's and dashes jittering on the screen.

[Retired Tech]

You still want to boot off the drive with windows on it, have you got another keyboard you can try

[jnovocaine]

Tried another keyboard and no change.

[Retired Tech]

Download Memtest

Run it overnight if possible

Using Memtest

[jnovocaine]

Memtest huh? hmm...

I have memtest86 ISO on cd from an issue I had a couple months back. However, it's impossible to boot off it since I can't access set up to rearrange boot order. I'm going to have to pass on this option. Even if I could run it, how could I see any results? The screen is dead.

[jnovocaine]

Hey Keith,
I just bought and installed a new video card and everything is working fine now. Close this thread. Thanks for the help.

[Retired Tech]

Memtest was an outside chance it would show something

Thank You for letting me know