Need help from computer peeps

My laptop did this today while playing cs:s. Artifacts everywhere and computer froze up. Now I basically can't use it unless I'm in safe mode. http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/z...s/a337e89a.jpg http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/z...s/257218f0.jpg Video card overheated? Display drivers? Using a nvidia geforce Go 7600

What happens if you uninstall your drivers in safe mode and reboot? Looks like a fried video card, were you OC'd?

Looks like your video card took a dump. How's it look in safe mode? Any artifacts or whatnot?

^Agree.

If it works in safe mode then its probably not using teh Video Card for display. Concolusion: Video card is fukked.

That happened to my laptop when I was running Vista. If you have Vista try reinstalling Vista (back up any software, files will be saved) and you hopefully will be fine. (If you don't reinstalling the OS may still help.)

I just booted into windows normally and everything is cool so far, if I start up a game it's probably going to start messing up again. Actually as I'm typing this the screen has become fukked up again. http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/z...s/ad70f7d3.jpg It's probably not a driver issue since I've been using the same video driver for the last 2 years or so with no issues, and now there's problems. I'm on windows 7, and haven't tried overclocking anything. I've put in so many gaming hours on this thing over the past 4-5 years, I'm actually surprised it did so well.

Backup your files and do a complete format and re-install. If you have the same problems after you reinstall your drivers, its your card.

Originally Posted by crashoran

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I just booted into windows normally and everything is cool so far, if I start up a game it's probably going to start messing up again. Actually as I'm typing this the screen has become fukked up again.

http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/z...s/ad70f7d3.jpg

It's probably not a driver issue since I've been using the same video driver for the last 2 years or so with no issues, and now there's problems.

I'm on windows 7, and haven't tried overclocking anything. I've put in so many gaming hours on this thing over the past 4-5 years, I'm actually surprised it did so well.

As your laptop is 4-5 years old, it just be full of dust and muck impeding its cooling. So it gets getting overheated when gaming.

I had a similar problem with my 3 year old MacBook Pro which has had a lot of use and travel. It was shutting down when it was been worked hard, because of overheating. As there are no Apple Genius' around this part of the world. I disassembled the laptop myself, and sure enough the cooling fans and air ducts where somewhat clogged up with dust and muck, thus impairing it's cooling. Cleaned it all out, reassembled the machine and now all is fine.

After some research it seems alot of other people have been running into the same issues with the 7600. So many that HP has extended the warranty on the affected models. Not sure if it is still serviceable though.

If it doesnt happen in safe mode then it's software.

Originally Posted by codetomorrow

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If it doesnt happen in safe mode then it's software.
Safe mode can certainly show up faulty drivers or software, however it doesn't really work the hardware much, unlike gaming or rendering. So if the machine has a failing graphic card(a known problem with some Nvidia 7600 and 8600 series) or cooling problem(my MacBook Pro), the computer would appear to be OK as it wouldn't be getting too hot. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...a-g84-g86s-bad

Originally Posted by MikeDT

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Safe mode can certainly show up faulty drivers or software, however it doesn't really work the hardware much, unlike gaming or rendering. So if the machine has a failing graphic card(a known problem with some Nvidia 7600 and 8600 series) or cooling problem(my MacBook Pro), the computer would appear to be OK as it wouldn't be getting too hot.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...a-g84-g86s-bad

If it's a Mac you can isolate the issue by using the extended 3D graphics hardware test on the Mac OS X install disk. Boot up while holding D.

I'm with MikeDT on this one.
Try turning off all Aero effects (or whatever that's called) in Windows, i.e., no translucent windows borders etc.
Basically, turn down visual effects all the way down until it looks like windows XP (more or less).
See if that solves your problem or not.

ETA: actually it looks like that's what you're doing already.

If yes, (or even if not) get one of those tools that monitor GPU temperature and run it, see if there is a correlation between high CPU temperature and artifacts.
If yes, take apart laptop, clean fans, clean heatsink, reapply thermal paste, put it back together and cross fingers and toes.