My PC burnt down... PSU went haywire and spiked two hard disks, 2 graphics cards, a modem, a CD-RW.... and.. ??? That's what the repair shop told me. One disk and the mobo were still okay.They replaced everyhting and I put Windows XP Pro on the machine now, and started re-installing software.All seemed to be going okay until I wanted to test a game I had only recently bought, Trainz. It runs fine on my notebook. But The graphics on my repaired PC are awful, as if somebody is pulling them with a big magnet.... there is sort of a shadow to the right and the game itself flickers like mad.So I loaded CFS3..... similar problem. The shadows under the aircraft and of the hangar go on and off.. for about 30 seconds and then the whole PC freezes and needs a hardware reset !Same with every game I tried so far, even FS2002 flickers and shows strange artifacts, even in the preview window when selecting an aircraft.I tried all kind of settings of the graphics card and game settings. I tried about 8 different Detonator NVidia drivers (all for XP) from 12.40 thru 20.83 all the way up to 40.73. Problem is exactly the same, no matter what I do.But.... windows runs fine, even the photo programs I have.My system specs are (the same as the old one that worked before the problems, except for XP):Athlon 1.2 Ghz384 Mb RAM32 mb GeForce2 MX1003x30 GB hard disksAny ideas !?? :-outta Francois :-wave[table border=0 cellpadding=10 cellspacing=0][tr][td valign=bottom" align="center]"At home in the wild"[/td][td valign=bottom" align="center][link:avsim.com/alaska/alaska_052.htm|Don's Alaskan Bush Charters]"Beavers Lead the Way"[/td][td valign=bottom" align="center][link:www.avsim.com/vfr_center/mainpages/vfr_flights_main_page.htm]VFR Flight Center]"Looking Good Outside"[/td][/tr][tr][td valign=top" align="center]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75b.gif[/td][td valign="top" align="left" colspan=2]http://www.fssupport.com/images/moose2.gif[/td][tr][/table]________________________Francois A. "Navman" DumasAssociate Editor &Forums AdministratorAVSIM Online![/bemail: [email protected]________________________

I just can't imagine that much damage without it harming the other disk drive and MOBO.When you loaded WinXP did it have SP1 loaded with it? You can check by right clicking My Computer, select properties, and see if it says Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 1.Did you reinstall all the latest drivers for your controller chips, sound, NIC, modems, etc. It seems you have touched all the drivers for the graphics card.Have you checked to see if any of your BIOS setting got corrupted?If you can borrow another graphics card to see if it still causes the problem.

>I just can't imagine that much damage without it harming the >other disk drive and MOBO. >That's been on my mind too ever since they told me.... You think the shop might have been BS'ing me!? I am not a technician and have no way of 'measuring' cards and drives to see if they are physically broken :-(I have ordered a whole new system (was in the planning anyway, but a little further down the road)... I will try and replace the graphics card. No, I did not load SP1 since I read somewhere that it would not do good to FS2002 ?Thanks for the help ! :-outta Francois :-wave[table border=0 cellpadding=10 cellspacing=0][tr][td valign=bottom" align="center]"At home in the wild"[/td][td valign=bottom" align="center][link:avsim.com/alaska/alaska_052.htm|Don's Alaskan Bush Charters]"Beavers Lead the Way"[/td][td valign=bottom" align="center][link:www.avsim.com/vfr_center/mainpages/vfr_flights_main_page.htm]VFR Flight Center]"Looking Good Outside"[/td][/tr][tr][td valign=top" align="center]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75b.gif[/td][td valign="top" align="left" colspan=2]http://www.fssupport.com/images/moose2.gif[/td][tr][/table]________________________Francois A. "Navman" DumasAssociate Editor &Forums AdministratorAVSIM Online![/bemail: [email protected]________________________

Francois,The problem of NOT loading SP1 is you don't have all the pre-SP1 fixes for WinXP installed. Yes, some people had problems with SP1 and their graphics cards, especially GeForce 4 cards. However, I think most of the problems have been resolved. You either need to load all the pre-SP1 fixes (if they are still available on Microsoft's Website) or load SP1.The technician can only check to see if the computer runs with drives attached and such. Your MOBO and other hardrive may or may not have been strained by the PS failure.I would probably start over with the computer, with minimum peripherals installed. I would reformat the hardrive, run a complete surface scan to ensure the heads didn't crash onto one or more of the platters during the failure. If the hardrive ends up showing a lot of failed sector, clusters, etc., assume it is not worth using. If it seems the disk drive is usuable, reload WinXP and SP1, then reload updated drivers for controller chips, sound, graphics, modems, NIC, etc. If it runs well without applications, try loading fs2002 and see if it continues to run without problems. You may find you need to revert back a driver or two on the graphics card, so don't consider that a problem.As far as the MOBO, you can only try running it hard to see if a failure exists. It is not cost effective for a technician to try and troubleshoot intermittent problems. These days, it is hardly cost effective to troubleshoot a visible or easily found problem. By the time you uninstall the MOBO to fix it, fix the problem, reinstall, you could have installed a new MOBO. Ecologically, its a bad situation but economically it cheaper.

Thanks William.. I'll restart once more (after I have received my new PC !). I should get this one going again too, it used to be my daughter's and she wants it back .... but in working order :-lol :-outta Francois :-wave[table border=0 cellpadding=10 cellspacing=0][tr][td valign=bottom" align="center]"At home in the wild"[/td][td valign=bottom" align="center][link:avsim.com/alaska/alaska_052.htm|Don's Alaskan Bush Charters]"Beavers Lead the Way"[/td][td valign=bottom" align="center][link:www.avsim.com/vfr_center/mainpages/vfr_flights_main_page.htm]VFR Flight Center]"Looking Good Outside"[/td][/tr][tr][td valign=top" align="center]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75b.gif[/td][td valign="top" align="left" colspan=2]http://www.fssupport.com/images/moose2.gif[/td][tr][/table]________________________Francois A. "Navman" DumasAssociate Editor &Forums AdministratorAVSIM Online![/bemail: [email protected]________________________

If she is like my daughter (Senior in High School), she probably could tell you what to fix. My daughter took a semester of CISCO, she did well but didn't like being around all the Computer NERD's until one day one of the NERD's showed her how to get around the Instant Messenger Block the teacher had instituted.The teacher said, "Well I'm not going to try to block anything again because you people know more than me!!":-lol

Hmm, that sounds just like my IT teacher. His comment was: As long as you don't try to teach ME anything, you'll all get a C. If you actually do anything in class, it'll go up from htere :-lol