First off if you’ve read the Nvidia Geforce4 MX 440 SE Video Card topic posted by janzy2001 then you will be familiar with my problem because it’s happening to me too.

System spec:
Windows Xp Pro edition +sp1
Pentium 3 1G
768 SD-RAM Pc-133
Sound Blaster PCI128
Old banged up network card
USB Expansion card
GeForce 4 Ti4600 - Creative Labs
CD -RW Drive 52-32-52 MSI
Old CD/DVD Drive
Old Floppy drive
40G Hard Drive don’t know much about either of these
17G hard drive
QDI (legend) Advanced 10T Motherboard
Apollo Pro 133T Chipset
Standard ATX power supply (400W)

I think that’s everything, if I forgot something please let me know.
Anyway as I said if you have read the other NVIDIA GeForce 4 post by janzy2001 then you basically know my problem.
Oh and before I begin I have to point out that I have had this card for the best part of two years and used the same install of windows xp pro with it during that time, and this problem has only started in the past few weeks.

If you haven’t ill EXPLAIN, while using the computer I am getting random blackouts, the screen flashes black and then a second or so later it APPEARS normal again. Most of the time this happens the original picture comes back as normal, but sometimes the image contains errors the screenshot shows this topic just after one of these blackouts, if you look you can see the similes are out of place. This is a simple error but sometimes there are major colour errors, large BLOBS of colour where there shouldn’t be (the kind of thing that happens when your graphics card is on the way out).

Further more, the problems are not only occurring during “desktop” use, I have massive problems when attempting to play games, does anyone have cs 1.6 with steam? Well if you do you know there is a counter strike splash screen before you have to find a server and start playing, most of the time I cannot get past the server lists, before even playing my display will freeze completely and no matter what I try the computer eventually restarts. The message I get from windows “Windows detect a possible device failure and had to restart” – or something similar.

This also happens with other games, some simply freeze and restart, others first show signs of graphic errors (those blobs of colour again) and can be exited all be it slowly, others will show errors freeze and after much keyboard hitting, just close.

So you know what’s going on, this is what  I’ve done to try and fix the problem. As usual the first thing I tried was to get the latest drivers for my video card, I got the latest version from the NVIDIA website 56.72 is it ? or something like that… this had no effect what so ever.

Second I tried reducing the quality settings for my card to see if this did anything… nothing happened

Next I tried reducing hardware acceleration, nothing happened

Although I’m not an expert with bios settings I am not afraid to mess around with things in there, so I changed to the AGP aperture size to 128 same as my card this had no effect, then I tried disabling the AGP 4X option, although my board supports it I’ve heard of problems begin caused by this being used, this at first seemed to fix the problem but then 2 and half hours later I had my first blackout so I’m going to say this had no effect.

At this point I was getting worried and annoyed, so I started hitting the monitor with the keyboard, while making me feel better this had no effect.

Next I checked all the cable connections, found them all to good, then I reset the monitor settings to the manufacturer defaults and even degaussed it, this didn’t do anything either.

Next I REMOVED and replaced the card several times to see if it was something to do with agp connection, this did nothing. I then got out some really old geforce 2 cards and put them in, to my horror the same blackouts started happening with both of these cards. I then thought it could be something to do with the chipset it self, and got out my old driver disc, installed the drivers I had and again this did nothing.

Finally ( I think) I decide that the only course of action left to take was a complete format, and reinstall of windows XP, this when completed seemed to solve the problem I went a good 4 hours without a single blackout but then they started to happen again seemingly after I installed all my office xp stuff and a few other programs.

At the moment im stumped and really need some out side help, this problem is making my brain hurt, so get your thinking caps on and give me some suggestions.

- thanks
Dave

Dave,  Well after reading your post I feel that I am not alone.  Not sure if this will ever get resolved.  Very strange.  I am at whits end and am totally annoyed at all of this.  Nvidia did not help me at all. Were your other cards all by the same manufacturer?  I am puzzled to the point that I would throw the stupid computer out of the window.    Well lets keep trying to find out.  If you do I am sure you will post it. I will keep checking your post to see what you have found out.  Thanks for your encouragement to know that I am not going nuts with this black and blinking screen.  Janzy  

hey you might like to try for some outside help at another forum I found help at and they seem to be really up on XP issues--
http://techimo.com

go to forums- I think you have to register to post but maybe someone there can help sounds like you have a nightmare