[happy raver]

I have an emchaines T6524 with windows Xp media Center Edition on service pack 3. and its a AMD athelon 64 processor 3500+. i added a video card NVIDIA GEforce 7300 GS probably a couple years ago. Also i added 2 GBs of RAM a long time ago. That is all i have done to this PC, as far as upgrading goes. Im not a huge gamer so this card was all i needed to play basic games online. This problem has effected my ability to do my college work since i have a few online classes... and since you can only stare at a bunch of lines for a short period of time( lots of stress on the eyes, not to forget i am in safe mode..)I need a solution asap. Right now i am basically living on this computer, and depending on it to do my school work.. I cannot stress how important this problem needs to be resolved. Ive had this computer since 2005 i love it so much its so dependable all those years until just the other day...

This all started while i was playing Battlefield 2 and all the sudden my display was distorted (crazy colors everywhere, lots of weird colors, hard to explain) so i managed to minimize the game and end BF2 process. After that i am unsure because my memory is horrible, but i think my display was fine until later that day i played bf2 again , then in about 2 mins of game play the same thing happened and i couldnt minimise , i ended up having to hold my power botton and restart. upon restarting my Emachines logo is the first thing that is displayed, and it had many vertical lines across the whole display. then the windows xp was loaded( with the vertical lines and color distortion) , then after it loaded the next thing i see is millions of white dashes and small rectangles all over my screen, kind of in a pattern resembling the famous "matrix" green numbers... except white dashes. then about 3 seconds of that displaying then my monitor turns off... and im pretty sure my PC is still on when this happens...

This is where it gets weird... so i started messing with the drivers first.. i know i uninstalled the current driver and installed a previous driver first... with no avail( by the way the only way i can even use my computer is if i boot in safe mode, and even now, i still see vertical lines in safe mode. If i try normal boot the same thing happens everytime what i explained above.) so then i uninstalled and installed the newest driver for my card... same problem... vertical lines on any driver. So its not my driver.

B.t.w - Im using a compaq fs740 monitor that came with the family computer my parents bought in year 2000, or 2001.. either way its really old.. so naturally i accused my monitor. after plugging the flat screen monitor that came with my emachine , it still displayed vertical lines... ive tried researching this online and i keep hearing that something about RAM modules or whatever can cause this... i have no idea how to check to see if that is the problem, but its either that, or something with my video card.

So this is actaully where is gets weird... somehow i managed to unstall my standard VGA display driver that i USED to see under display adapters in Device Manager. Its not there anymore... and for awhile i didnt even have "display adapters" title in the device manager so naturally i flipped out. this happened when i was switching drivers. somehow i managed to get my video card to show up in device manager but still there is no VGA display thingy that used to appear above my video card, in the same section of device manager obviously. Another thing that i noticed just today, when i right click on desktop and access display properties> settings, it used to say " display : Compaq fs740 etc etc ON NVIDIA Ge FORCE 7300 GS." now all it says is "Display : (default monitor) on ..." and after "on" it doesnt list my video card.. or any text at all in fact. so not only is my monitor not recognized but my card also is not recognized... but not to forget im in safe mode so maybe that is why?? but im almost positive that is part of the problem or atleast a problem stemmed from my main problem. And like i said the only thing i see in my device manager is my video card.... i cant find my monitor on device manager...

I went to the emachines support site, located my PC model, and they have a list of drivers you can download... all the stuff that came with my copmputer... so i downloaded the vga thing and tried to install it but of course when i click on the setup.exe ( its an ATI brand all i know) so the ATI symbol shows up in the install wizard and then i got an error... here is the exact error: " setup was unable to find components that can be installed on your current hardware or software configuration. Please make sure you have the required hardware or software." This is in safe mode obviously. Oh wait, i probably have to boot in VGA mode and then try installing?? or atleast disconnect my video card.... i dont know what to do... I am over loaded with stress as it is with school and work full time and this is just icing on the cake at this point... ANY help would be greatly appreciated.

I also took out my video card cleaned all the dust out of my tower basically and the fan on my card had dust in it that i removed without damaging anything. also all the pins look perfect. My head is about to explode, ive used this forum before and everyone is very knowledgable and very helpful, i know you guys will be able to help me.. I , being the dummy that i am( even though i am pretty good with computers), will try to provide as much info as i can for you guys to accuratly pin point the problem.

THANK YOU SO MUCH GUYS <3

Justin.

p.s sorry for writing so much Thnks for your time in advance.

P.s.s - I am afraid to do anything else without instructions from an expert from this site. I managed to uninstall my standard VGA driver on my own so... ya... I think i need to unplug my vid card and use the built in card on my motherboard( the stock displayer.... but once again ... my device manager shows no VGA display so i am terrible afraid of doing this trouble shoot because i somehow managed to uninstall my display card that came stock with my PC so naturally, i am afraid to unplug my GEFORCE card and try to boot with the stock card. Let me know what to do.. I may sound dumb , but I can understand any computer lingo so whoever will be helping me, do not spend access time trying to convert what you want to say into language a person with no expirence can understand... (if that makes any sense to you.) THANKS.

I just added a picture of my desktop in safe mode that clearly shows my display settings with my monitor listed as "(default monitor) on "nothing". and my device manager with my card listed, the picture is an attatchment.

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Edited by happy raver, 04 April 2010 - 11:47 PM.

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Hi happy raver
Looking at your O/P it sounds like you may have a heat problem!
If you are confident about opening your computer case up & doing
some checks here are a couple of things you can check out, but
please make sure you take anti static precautions first:
1: make sure that inside the case is clear of dust including fans
2: remove the gfx card, clean the slot, replace the card securely
3: remove memory sticks, clean the slots & replace memory securely
4: power the system up & check that all fans are working correctly
especially the gfx card fan as they are known to suffer failure.
If you use canned compressed air to clean your system & components
please be careful & follow the instructions on the container.
Good luck & please let us know how things work out

[phillpower2]

Hi happy raver
Looking at your O/P it sounds like you may have a heat problem!
If you are confident about opening your computer case up & doing
some checks here are a couple of things you can check out, but
please make sure you take anti static precautions first:
1: make sure that inside the case is clear of dust including fans
2: remove the gfx card, clean the slot, replace the card securely
3: remove memory sticks, clean the slots & replace memory securely
4: power the system up & check that all fans are working correctly
especially the gfx card fan as they are known to suffer failure.
If you use canned compressed air to clean your system & components
please be careful & follow the instructions on the container.
Good luck & please let us know how things work out

[happy raver]

Thank you very much for your immediate attention, phillpower2. I got a canister of dust-off and cleaned a significant amount of dust from my tower. I removed my gfx card and memory cards and throughly cleaned my video card's fan and the other 3 fans. Also used a small vacuum with a home made rig attachment that cleaned out my slots for the memory and gfx card very good. Also, i did a full virus scan(not quick scan) with Malware-Bytes and only had 2 objects infected and removed them yesterday. But that's kind of irrelevant because i know it's not virus related.

Opon booting up the usual thing happens (this has been happening for many months now) where sometimes when i press the power button i will here my fans going into like super drive and sometimes they will stay like that and my screen will still be black and turned off...and no matter how long I wait, it will not boot up, its like stuck in a faulty boot. Other times the fans go into over drive for a few seconds then decrease to a normal speed ( or sound in this case) and still my monitor will be off( as in the light is orange, as if my computer would be turned off.) typically in a good start-up my fans run at high speed then they go to normal , then if my keyboard lights blink, then my computer will boot up 100% for sure. But this has been happening for awhile , i am not sure if this relates. But for some reason I think it does, maybe because of the POST it wont boot up because there is a conflict.

But besides all that non sense, on my second try booting up it worked, but as the Emachine logo appeared the lines are still present so i went into safe mode and here I am.

Well Doc, give it to me straight

Anything else we can do, or try, in order to find the root of this problem.

THANKS SO MUCH!!
Justin

Edited by happy raver, 07 April 2010 - 12:48 AM.

[happy raver]

Well good news guys, I pulled out my gfx card and booted up and went inot BIOS settings and changed my integration display to onboard instead of pci slot.( by the way, there was pci-slot and pci-express slot as the other two options... and before i changed anything it was on just pci-slot, my question is ,after i get this all figured out (i have a new problem now , explanation will follow) should i plug my card in and boot up, go into bios settings and put the display option as pci-e slot ?? My card isnt a good card in any way but i thought it was for pci-e, hence my confusion.

MY NEW PROBLEM-

so right now i have my gfx card on my desk and im using the one that came default(the integrated one). So when i booted up i instantly noticed that my vertical lines were GONE!!! i was so excited.. until i took a closer look and realized that all my display is sorta fuzzy, twitching( all my display and text and icons and everything was twitching and eradically moving all over the place, if i didn't know how to navigate my computer blind folded, i wouldn't have been able to navigate, that's how distorted the image was...) so after adjusting my refresh rate to 75 the eradic twitching stopped but it appears as though my entire display is shaking and its very noticeable... it's as if all the icons and text are sorta choppy,twitchy, and somewhat fuzzy.. its hard to explain but its very annoying and clearly not "kosher". Ive tried adjusting display settings but if i change my refresh rate to anything besides 75 hrtz it resorts back to the very eradic twitching and you cant make out text or anything. Or if I change my resolution to anything except 1024 x 768 the extreme twitchy-ness happens. I am unsure how to fix this.. any help would be great.. THANK YOU SO MUCH <3

ps. i uploaded a picture of this page, and of course i can't tell if you guys viewing the picture can see the distortion or not because its always on my screen for the time being.

Some good news however, is that upon start up when i got on desktop, new found hardware found VGA controller ( i was so happy to read that) so i managed to install my standard ATI display stuff that came stock on my PC.. so now in my device manager under display it says "ATI radeon xpress 200 series" and my monitor also shows up under monitor so these are both great steps in the right direction.. as opposed to not having a standard vga display in device manager ( or my monitor)lol.

I am definatly wanting to fix this first before i try to put in my geforce 7300 because of obvious reasons.. i want this stock display chrystal clear before i add anything onto it so to speak. THANKS <3

Justin

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[phillpower2]

Glad to see you have made some progress towards resolving your problem!
Couple of things to ask, have you tried using your monitor on its default
settings & when you are trying the 1024x768 resoloution is the refresh
rate set at 85hz.
Another possibility of what may have caused or contributed towards your
original problem is the psu failing, emachines unfortunately are known
for putting in the bare minimum in their systems ie a 300W peak load psu
& looking at your systems specs it possibly has an MSI-7184 mobo & MSI
recommend a minimum psu of 350W peak load, if this is the case it would
mean your psu working harder & so come to its end of life prematurely, so
its worth checking the information printed on your psu to be sure of whats
in there, after all if you have to replace your add on gfx card you will
need to know if your psu can support/power it.
If you are still having problems it would be helpful if you listed as much
information about your system as you can, such as mobo make-model, psu spec
etc this will help others to help you better.
Good luck & let us know how its going

[happy raver]

Thank you for your time phillpower. WOW HOW WEIRD, I was doing research yesterday on the problem I mentioned earlier about failing to boot about 75% of the time for me. So i googled emachine t6524 boot problems and sure enough; It's a very popular problem for my particular model. After reading many forums, I kept hearing about the puny PSU in the responces. So ironically, I was going to tell you about the same thing you told me!

And how i belive this is what started this problem.(Also, I left my PC turned on a lot more often .) Embarrassing to say the least; My puny geforce 7300 GS was even too much for 300 watt.

Yes, the motherboard is a MSI 7184 ... well let me correct myself, now I have a fried MSI 7184, thanks to the puny power supply. Is it possible, because of my psu, my display is shakey?? it's as if all these words I see have a bad case of the tremors. Is that plausible?? Firsly, i will need a psu im thinking cosair brand i forget which version(maybe a 550 or 650). Because no matter what video card I get (im thinking an older geforce like 9 series(it would cost the same amount of money to buy as my 7300 did back in the day, maybe even less ), but then I would need a better processor to handle the card. What do you think? My board is fried, or my video card is fried... or both??? If I have to buy a new power supply, motherboard, processor, and a new video card.... lol.... not much has to be said.. I'm not doing that. What do you suggest I do.

Well heres the cpu:

AMD Athlon™ 64 3500+ Processor (64-bit with AMD64 Technology)
(512KB L2 cache, 2.20GHz, 2000MHz FSB)

Heres the Power Supply:

Well it says on the tag Hipro 300 watt... but I heard on another forum i am pretty sure a guy had the same PC as me but he said his psu was a BESTEC 300 watt... either way its trash.

As i think back when my PC started having troubles booting up the first time, defficent power supply could be the cause for that... But even if I replace my PSU, I will still have this problem with my display if my mboard is cooked... right? Or will getting a better psu save my computer and fix this display problem and prevent further decay. Or my display is like this because something got too hot and no matter what i do , i have to replace the mother board? I am so disorientated as to how i will go about this... i need proof of an underlying cause i guess.. or atleast a solution for my fuzzy display.. if that is fixed then i can easily go from there ( getting new psu, etc..) right now i am in a terrible limbo i guess:(

And No, no matter what resolution i choose my refresh rate doesn't change or atleast it says its the same refresh rate... just now i went to 800 x 600 and then i made the refresh rate 100 hertz and the fuzzy-ness( clearity) got a tiny tiny bit better.. but the shakey-ness is still present... and it appears that when i make resolution or refresh rate anything else it shakes really bad but what im trying to explain is when this is occuring, i notice that some spatial locations on my monitor are worse than others... so when it looks like my display is sezuireing, the very upper left corner is a TAD BIT easier to read and make out... for example if i drag a window around my display i can read the text somewhat better in a different place.. BUT THIS IS ONLY WHEN MY DISPLAY IS IN SUPER BAD MODE IF I MAKE THE RESOLUTION ANYTHING BUT 800 x 600 on 100 hrtz refresh rate. But when i am in the said configuration the tremoring (shakey) display has the same amount of distortion across my screen.

So i dont know what to do. This is rather irritating but like i said... i think im going in the right direction with your assistance phillpower, because the lines are gone and my device manager isn't causing me to have nightmares anymore.

Also , i forgot to mention: I went on ATI driver page and for my integrated display ati radeon xpress 200 and there is an update for the 10.2 catalyst. So I downloaded it and installed and restart.. and nothing... in fact, It looks worse than it did before i updated :/ I might roll back driver... it was weird I clicked update driver on the properties and it found alot of updates and installed like 8.3 or 8.2 (this was before i did 10.2) and when i got 8.2 I noticed it said MSI xpress 200 instead of ati xpress 200 on device manager or display settings. But now (after) i installed 10.2 It says its ATI xpress 200 AND IT SAYS not digitaly signed... and said it also during installation and it said to end installation.

THANK YOU!!!

<3 Justin

Edited by happy raver, 08 April 2010 - 02:00 AM.

[phillpower2]

I was aware of the feeble psu`s emachines use down to having problems with one I was working on recently & that had a 300W Jeantech psu fitted, once I put a more powerful psu in the problem was solved! so 300W is clearly insufficient by todays standards & the 300W Hipro hasn`t got the best of reputations either.
Now to look at possible soloutions to your present issue, is it possible for you to loan another psu compatible with your motherboard? if so this could save you a lot of time & headaches because if using a known working psu doesn`t resolve the problem then we need to look at other possibilities.
Should you have to replace anything major in your system I would recommend replacing the psu 1st to make sure you have sufficient power available ie 500W+ & as you mention Corsair are one of the best out there, just make sure the atx 12v power connector is 18A or above, check out the Corsair CX & VX range.
Where updating drivers is concerned, I would never bother unless it was to fix a known problem or to dramatically improve poor performance, as some times the update causes more problems than its worth but have a look here,
http://www.drivermax...p...&msg_no=all

Edited by phillpower2, 08 April 2010 - 09:18 AM.

[123Runner]

If I read this correctly, you have the monitor problem with the add on card AND the on board video.
You have tried another monitor with no change also.
This points to something else being the problem.
Combine this with "failing to boot" and it could very well be the power supply.

I have seen "wavy" monitor screens due to "noise".
The noise could be bad wall power, generated by motors, or failing components, etc. I would look at the psu 1st.
I would get a better psu ASAP because a failing PSU can cause damage (if it already hasn't) furthur on down the line. Sucfh as taking out a board or drive or anything else.

[happy raver]

Thanks guys,

Well thats the thing ... My mom has tons of computers at work so i can have her bring some home... but then again they could be un working computers or working... Also , since they are just work computers, they are most likely old and the power supply is probably the same 300 watt.

My mom doesnt have the time to take apart each PC and analyze if its psu is compatable in my pc.. Could i just tell her to get a HP because they are similiar to emachine, for example?

So the only specifications of the replacement PSU are that the atx 12v power connector is 18A or above? I will ask my mother what type of pc's she can chose from and I will get back with you guys.

And thats a good point 123Runner, but I dont know what you mean. I am 100% sure my monitor is perfect. I DO NOT know about my board or my card. You are right about the 'noise', maybe that is happening. Thank you so much! I will try to swap PSU's and see if my problem persists.

[happy raver]

Ok guys, I just bought a 350 watt antec pwoer supply that was really cheap for 30 dollars... after putting it in my PC i hoped for the best. My display is still slightly wavy, and its making me very mad.

I fear for the wrose tho and because of my dying PSU , 5 years of strain in the making, and i belive that it took out a component that handles display on my m board got fried. Its not my monitor, and its all wavy and im using my onboard display... what does this leave me with?? replacing a m board is going to cost alot because i dont want to deal with the second part of it, installing windows etc... I am stressing this.. Can you guys tell me anything to help me out? THANK U SO MUCH !!! i really appreciate all your guy's responces,

[123Runner]

Boot in to safe mode and see if the problem clears up.

[happy raver]

Going into safe mode did not help at all. It did what I thought it would do... same display but with safe mode which was even worse.

Its not like my display gets wavy after i log onto my desktop; the first emachine logo and the F key info is all blurry and wavy.

I found out the best way to describe what my display looks like.... : ITS LIKE EVERYTHING IS VIBRATING.... its that perfect intensity of movement that resembles vibration movement. Its like my whole display is vibrating.... AND ITS NOT THE MONITOR!!!!!! IT SOUNDS LIKE A MONITOR PROBLEM, but it's not.

I was concerned about someone said 'noise' so I literally took another PC and plugged it into the monitor I use, in the same spot where my pc is. But the display was perfect... chrystal clear. AND its a 2000 or 2001 compaq desktop!!!!

Any suggestions or help will be greatly appreciated

Edited by happy raver, 13 April 2010 - 07:21 PM.

[123Runner]

Booting to safe mode eliminates the video driver as a problem.
Swapping the monitor eliminates the monitor.
The psu is replaced so that is eliminated.
You put another computer in the same location with the original monitor and the problem is gone.

The only thing not done is to reset the bios. This should have absolutely no effect, but now we are reaching.
There is usually a jumper on the board near the battery that needs to be placed on the other pins.
If no jumper, then remove the battery. It is round and about the size of a quarter. There might be a tab that needs to be pushed in to get the battery out. Leave it out for about 5 mins.

You will need to enter bios on restart and set the date and time.

The only other thing left is a bad main board.

Edited by 123Runner, 18 April 2010 - 06:04 AM.

[happy raver]

Yes Runner you are correct about the things we know it's not. there is 2 jumpers, one has 2 pins and the other has 3 pins... DO I move the 3 pin so its on 2 and 3??? do i start up the computer with this config then switch back and start up? I also took out my battery for 2 mins but My date was todays date so it didnt reset.

Also, I am going to buy another mobo for 59 dollars. I hope its brand new and not in a condition like mine xD they have over 100 in stock though.... SO I might order that if you cant think of any more " last resort" options. Thanks

Justin

Edited by happy raver, 15 April 2010 - 06:48 PM.

[phillpower2]

Hi there, below is the method for clearing the cmos on your mobo, the 2 pin jumper is for clearing password settings so please ignore, also I have read before that if you remove the cmos battery for a few minutes & press & hold in the power on switch it will discharge any power that remains in your system, that said Ive also read that the battery must be left out for a number of hours, so using the method from the MSI website user manual below is the quickest & surest way:

MSI Reminds You...
To clear CMOS you should:
1. switch off the system and short 2-3 pin of the JCMOS1;
2. switch on the system again and the message “CMOS checksum
error” should appear;
3. switch off the system and return to 1-2 pin (Keep Data) position;
4. switch on again for operation.
Please avoid clearing CMOS while the system is on; it will damage
the mainboard.

As ever good luck & let us know how it goes