Sorry if this seems long winded, but I wanted to make sure people have as much information as might be needed.
I know there might be a few people here with some ideas to help with my troubles. This all started about 2 weeks ago. I download music and soccer games with bitcomet or emule. I come to tl.net, on-line e-mail accounts, myspace, gomtv/sc2gg/youtube/whatever for vod's.
I have a P4 2.20 Ghz with 1 gb of memory. GeForce 4 TI 4600 with 512 mb of memory. Edit: The computer was built in 2002.
Two weeks ago I was surfing gomTV, and my screen starts to blink. It would appear normal, then the computer would "freeze" for about 3 seconds, next the screen would go black. The screen would then come back, during which time I could move my cursor, but any actions were very sluggish (and mostly never finished). This occurs for about 5 minutes then the screen goes black and never comes back.
That's my problem. I first thought ugh I got a virus. So I logged in safe mode and ran AVG, but this found nothing. I ran SDfix to see if it was a trojan, but this found nothing. I logged safe mode with networking and ran housecall and panda. These found nothing outside of the normal cookie alerts. I was still thinking it might be a virus, so I reformat my computer.
I finally load windows and start the updating process. At this point the screen resolution is moderately low. Then SP2 updates, and after the reboot my old problem comes back!! At this point SP2 apparantly causes screen resolution to increase greatly.
So a small recap: 1) thought it was a virus, nothing detects it, reformatted. 2) problem does not appear in safe mode or with reduced resolution.
I removed SP2, and windows launched at the previous reduced settings. I installed my video drivers. These also caused the default resolution to increase, and my problem to return.
Now I have launched in "VGA mode", and it is killing my eyes. Hopefully I can find some help.
Here is what I think the problems could be:
1) Virus -- I think I've ruled this out, but maybe it remains through formatting.
2) Video card is overheating -- I've opened the case and placed a small fan blowing across the video card, so I don't think this is the case.
3) Video card concedes the war against BW (needs to be replaced) -- This would be sad since it means I must buy another (could be wasted money if it doesn't fix the issue).
Thanks for any advice,
yare