Won't boot - video card prob?

[sbondy]

So, here's what's happened so far:

I turn on my computer, but I didn't need it right away, I think I came back 8 hours later or something, and turned the monitor on. When I turned the monitor on (19" CRT) it started making loud snapping/crackling noises. After 10 seconds (or so) I turned it off, turned it on again a minute later and the same thing happened. From the sound, I expected to see/smell smoke. I didn't. Rats, I'm down a monitor.

I plug in a replacement that I haven't used for years (15"CRT) and up comes the XP sign in login screen, but very distorted - I figured it was a problem with this monitor, that most likely the video card was asking it to display a resolution that it couldn't handle. I turn the machine off and go to safe mode. The machine will not boot in safe mode. The list of drivers scrolls by as it starts each one, and it hangs up in the middle, I believe it was AGPP440.drv, I could be wrong on the name.

I restart. (All normal POST boot up screens appear just fine). I say "start windows normally". C drive must be checked for errors. Sure. It checks for errors, and after counting 1-100%, it gives the disk check report, after 10 or so seconds, a 2 or 3 sentence error message flashes on the screen so fast that I can only read two words: "physical memory". The machine then reboots itself and the cycle starts over. My XP lists 3 different safe mode boot options, none of which work, they all hang after having processed so many drivers and having listed the AGP driver, or if I choose start Windows normally or last known good configuration, it does a disk check and then reboots after flashing the above message that goes so fast I can't read it.

The video card in question is a 32MB something Nvidea I think. This machine is my recording machine, I'm a guitar teacher, it's a slow P4 with 768MB ram.

Sigh.

I'm thinking (hoping?) that my video card is a little bit fried from the monitor blowing up. Could this be the case? Would my video card still show all the POST screens but roll over when trying to start XP? What does the error message most likely say, the one where I can only read the bit about 'physical memory'. Again, I'm hoping it's complaining about the ram on the video card.

So, how to troubleshoot this? Can I go buy a cheap video card and try it? Could this spell trouble for my MOBO? I pray that there's nothing wrong with the H.D.s, as there's lots of audio data on there I can't replace...

Thanks for any advice,

Steve

[rjfvillarosa]

What type of machine is this, branded store bought or custom built?

[sbondy]

This is a machine I built 3 years ago. Been very stable up to this point.

MSI mobo, WD 40G boot drive, Seagate 80G data drive. Any other pertinent specs?

[rjfvillarosa]

I think your idea of when the monitor popped it annoyed the video card sending it into a spasm is probably quite reasonable.
Have you got onboard video or another card you can try?
Is everything else working, can you access all the drives?

[glc]

Make yourself an Ultimate Boot CD and test your ram and hard drives. www.ultimatebootcd.com

Now, which exact model MSI motherboard? Examine it very carefully for capacitors that are leaking electrolyte or where the tops are bulging.

What brand and model power supply?

[sbondy]

Is there some magic to using the Ultimate Boot CD? I (finally) downloaded the file, burned a bootable CD with the ISO file, and when I try to boot off it, it says starting PC DOS, it seems to load the CD driver and the mouse driver, and I come up to a DOS prompt at the A: drive.

Good news, I can browse my C and D drive so they *seem* intact. Bad news is that I can't seem to access the utilities on the boot CD, so I still don't know where my problem is, video, MOBO or RAM.

Any ideas? Does this in itself mean something, or is this user error?

Thanks

[glc]

It may be user error - you do not burn a bootable CD - you simply open the ISO image in your burning software and burn it. The ISO is already bootable, you don't have to ADD booting capability.