graphic card purge part 2

is there any way to "purge" a graphic card?
I have an ati x1600.

it worked fine for about a year, but then it went weird on me.

for a while it would show a black screen after the windows booted (but could hear the windows starting up)... the solution was simpe... restarting the machine, and everything would work fine.

but after a while, restarting wouldnt help.


I did a clean install of windows, and windows work fine.

I start to install catalyst, and in the middle of the process the screen goes black with a "_" blinking in the top left corner. Only thing I can do is restart.

I tried disableing x1600 in the device manager, and then installing the catalyst, but as soon as I enable it... the same problem appears ("_" blinking in the top left corner.)

I've tried installing windows sp2, and sp3... and tried installing different versions of drivers (that used to work in the past), but nothing seems to help.
is there a way to restart the whole graphic card?
is there a way to update the firmware or something?

P.S. sorry... I made this thread once,... but didnt quite get the responese I was looking for... and I updated the symptoms a bit.

thanks for the reply.

 

maybe your laptop overheats?try to clean the vents

 

Are you sure you're installing the correct drivers? Does it happen if you just use Windows default display drivers (first installed with Windows)?

 

I cleaned the vents... still same problem.
The problem doesnt happen with the default windows drivers (VGAsave), but as soon as I install any other driver, the thing crashes.
I've used official HP\Ati drivers, and the omega drivers... with the same result.

I've tried using 2 different kinds of ram, 2 different types of HDD...
so the problem is narrowed down to graphic card and possibly motherboard.

 

It doesn't sound as a GPU nor a Mobo problem since the problem happens only when you install the drivers.

try this just to confirm that it's not an overheating problem.
Do a windows clean install. Then install a game and let it run for a while (30 mins at least). Then use something like RMclock, or http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php.

If you have acceptable temperatures and your laptop doesn't crash this will confirm that it's not hardware relited.

you can also stress your laptop using benchmarks instead of games. Orthos is good to stress your CPU. Sandra sysoft has few benchmarks to test the GPU (i think).

Edit:
When does the laptop crashes? I mean what application would be using when the system crashes?

 

I read a lot about GPU related problems in different sites and forums and usually GPU problems manifest as soon as you turn the laptop ON (artifact, white screen, black screen, 3-4 pixels white strips in the middle of the display...)

 

cpuid cant tell the temparature of my GPU unless the graphic card drivers are installed. and as soon as I install them, the windoes either stalls or goes black

 

I have the feeling that it's a ram or wifi related problem.

If you have two ram modules, try to use one of them only and install the drivers and see what happens. Try with both modules. If your still crashes, remove the wifi module and try again.

Before you do the above could you check that everything is well connected and you don't have a loose connection.

Your laptop is the HP nx 9420, right?

 

check this out
link to your laptop maintenance guide
Troubleshooting GPU drivers page 44-45 (section 2-16 and 2-17)

 

I don't think x1600 support temp monitoring, my friend has a z61p, with a firegl v5200, and he can't monitor temps.

 

I guess you're right