Chaps, apologies for ducking out of ROF last night after a screen freeze.
I assumed a simple re-boot would have solved the situation but alas not. The computer enters the initial stages of re-booting but then hangs. Last night as it was getting late I decided to leave it to today. I use a Sony Bravia as a monitor so I can’t see the Bios screen booting, only windows start.
Today I hooked up a spare monitor only 19" instead of my 37" Bravia 
Story so far… all well until
Yesterday afternoon I updated Nvidia graphic drivers to the latest Beta as was decribed by Luthier at 1C as I had the graphic drivers he said were causing problems with Clod, big mistake I think. :mad:
Bios boot up is all messed up and is quite unreadable. Windows start up manager detected a fault and let me system restore to an earlier time before the Beta driver were added. Booting up, no difference Bios screen is messed up but Windows loading screen is clear, but it can’t load windows it just hangs.
Some of you in the IT world might have some experience of this before and I’m looking for a logical first step. I am thinking graphics is the problem as it was crashing and recovering. But I think the first step might be to reset the Bios first and see what happens.
Any help would be appreciated as I don’t really want to spend a week re-installing everything.
Splash
Boot into Windows Safe mode (press F8 and hold it whilst booting). That should load the VGA drivers and allow you to de-install the previous ones.
Bios mode corruption is usually a good indication of a stuffed video card Splash.
Unless your beta drivers have upped the clocks on your card ( for some reason ) to beyond what its capable of. Looks like a new card is in order.
Some things to try before binning it.
By all means, reset the machine bios, it cant hurt.
Remove and reseat the card ( with the machine power DISCONECTED, not just OFF ), do the same with any external power feeds to the card.
If your machine has onboard video as well, boot using that as your video solution, and once booted have a look at the figures for core clock and memory clock in your graphics card… see if they meet manufacturers specs.
If all the above fails, sticking out your bottom lip and going “blub blub blub” to the wife may bring results. ( YMMV )
Sporran
I just do the little boy lost look, works everytime 
Update.
To past POST requires CPU, RAM and Vid card/onboard
I’ve removed the card, removed cmos battery waited and will refit battery before I turn on. If I boot now would the motherboard know I haven’t got a vid card in and use onboard or will I get the beeps for no video card.
Not sure as without vid card I won’t see Bios boot up.
Splash
PS if it is the vid card what do people recommend, Nvidia or ATI. At the moment I have Nvidia 295 1792 Mb
Starting to think its worse than first thought. No BIOS screen at all now.
Weird thing I’m not getting any beeps/fault codes. 
Motherboard or processor gone tits up?
Splash
There’s usually a light on the MoBo somewhere to indicate power, can you see it?
Have you reseated the GFX card properly? replaced the power connections?
Did you knock any of the RAM whilst messing with your card?
Yes, power is good
Have you reseated the GFX card properly? replaced the power connections?
Yes all seems correct and connected
Did you knock any of the RAM whilst messing with your card?
No, RAM is totally out of the way.
Motherboard is Gigabyte EX58-UD5, Processor i7 920 @4.0 GHz, 12Gb RAM
Its going to be a bad day, I can feel it
Splash
You might want to try use a boot re-flash program then. There should be one on your mobo’s website.
If I have no means of seeing a BIOS screen (just blank), think I will struggle to flash anything unless it can boot direct from DVD automatically :eek:
Will have a look, bad day boo hoo
Splash
Edit: I’ve been thinking about this for the last hour and have gone back to the first theory Graphics card or corrupt BIOS. I’m positive the onboard video was turned off in BIOS, everything else looks/seems ok. Wish I had a spare PCIE card that fits the slot to check out the theory.
The only answer I can think of is to buy a new card, fit it and see. To be honest I’m stumped. As for windows hanging and not booting driver issues?
Chaps it doesn’t seem too good, might be offline for a while.
Posted over at Overclockers forum and somebody had the same fault. Possibly the PSU causing the RAM slots to blow.
Feasible?
Splash
Gigabyte EX58-UD5
That board hasn’t got onboard video.
If you was close I could lend you an old gs8400 I have lying around for this exact problem. But as Sporran said the fact that the BIOS screen is garbled, it all points to a Graphics card failure. You’d need a spare card to prove it beyond doubt, but it certainly looks that way.
On current cards
My advice pick up a NV GTX480 for OCUK @£200 right now…very good price!
Wish I was closer, to have a proper look.
Yes Brigs I stand corrected, I was looking for a motherboard with one installed already to use in cases like this. Got crossed wires sorry.
It’s been a bad day
Splash
Thanks mate but don’t bother, I need to get one as a test piece so I opted for one of those from OC. Should be here by Mon/Tue and we will see
Fingers crossed 
Splash
Well test card arrived 20 mins ago, installed and tested
Result: :w00t: Woo Hoo rather than Boo Hoo, just need to check the RAM is ok and still showing 12GB.
Seems the theory stuff worked out and the graphics card went tits up.
Where did I put my credit card?
Splash
12 Gb still working, all good and managed to get Win 7 working again and booting correctly
Ordered one of these and the Mrs is going to buy me one for my birthday if I want one so I can put them in SLI. 
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-079-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750
Splash
PS: Thanks for all the ideas to all involved.
Good news Splash
that 480 will really make a difference on your PC. The 295 is just two 260 glued together, on games that don’t do SLI you’ll only be using the one 260.
The 480 will seem like quite a jump in performance on it’s own.
…and ironically
Just took delivery of the Asus 480 this morning myself, will sit nicely next to the one in me PC already.
Good price on OCUK for the 480 at the moment, I had to do it.
It’s my Birthday this weekend…I treated myself.
Mrs asked what I’d like, I said nothing I need, she said can she borrow a tenner to get me a card then!!
Looks like a good time to go SLI, RoF will be SLi compatible in the next patch and CoD will follow suit no doubt.