video scrambled

[steve-o1]

Hi all--I'm new to this forum, hope i can get some help. Thanks in advance.
Compaq Presario 5280 (I know, it's old) bone stock except samsung 52x cd burner. My secondary PC. Power-up and video is scrambled. Once in a while it will boot ok but video degrades-lines appear. Monitor display has blinking squares and numbers. OS-win98 1st ed. Ati rage pro integrated video in motherboard. Celeron proc:/ I replaced monitor and same problem. Refresh rate comes up different each time I boot. Any Ideas??

 

[dedb33t]

Hmmm... Boot into safe mode and change some stuff around??

 

[Steff]

try re-seating your graphics card, have alook see if everything is pluged in correctly also see if there is possible damage to the pins on the cables etc

 

[steve-o1]

Thanks. I've reseated and checked connections pin damage etc. I cant navigate past safe mode because I cant see what the screen is saying..it's all garbled and unreadable. Do you know if I can buy a new harddrive already formatted for windows? (plug and play) The vid card is part of the motherboard. I could also try to install a seperate vid-card (this is my wifes computer--she loves it even though its win98 -she doesnt like the new dell w/ P-4 -xp..go figure. I was wondering if there's a boot disc with alternative drivers that bypass my default boot sequence since i cant see what I'm doing...
Thanks again
PS I just got a 100 gig external hd if that would help.

 

[Raffaz]

If you use safe mode, that is using alternative drivers. It sounds like its on its way out to me. Have you got a spare graphics card that you can test on it?

 

[coolfella]

yes
use a spare graphics card and see if its working

 

[steve-o1]

Thanks everyone for the responses. No I dont have a spare graphics card unless one out of a Dell will work with a Compaq--I heard it wont. Is this true?

 

[The Sheep]

It doesn't matter what computer it is out of, it depends what kind it is. If it is a PCI PCI E or AGP and you have a spare slot in your machine, it should work fine.

 

[borat_sagdiyev]

OMG THATS MY OLD COMPUTER but yeah try a different vid card.

 

[mtr4nch]

im about 98% sure its your power supply.. trust me, this same exact kind of thing happened to me twice already. heres a link to my oooooolldd thread from the first time it happened.. http://www.computerforums.org/showthread.php?t=6312

i guess try and get a known good working PS and test it out. if everything is fine after that, then that is the prob. if not, then idk lol. just thought id help out.