Computer Problem.

[Pony Soldier]

Ok so for a while now my computer (custom built and about 4 years old) has been having a problem related to display. I'm pretty damn sure it's my graphics card going (nVidia 9800) but I just wanted to ask somebody to make sure and to see how/if I can possibly fix it. So anyway my problem is that everytime I boot up my computer now the display just shuts off for like 3-5 minutes after it gets done loading the OS (Vista). After waiting for it to turn back on everything works somewhat normal (I've actually been experiencing more crashes lately, had one just the other night and wouldn't let me do anything so I had to hold down the power button to turn it off). When this first started to happen I read that sometimes if you just clean the dust inside it would work fine so I did that and to my surprise it actually did work, but not for long. Ever since then I had to wait, like I said, around 3-5 minutes for my display to come back on. Again like I said, this happens after it finishes loading the OS. I also just recently cleaned the dust inside of it again, which wasn't a whole lot, and it still doesn't fix it along with inserting the card into a different slot, didn't work, I unplugged and plugged the video cable back in, didn't work, restarted the whole damn computer and nothing. I tried just about everything you can do.

Also, since I'm probably going to have to eventually buy another video card, I was thinking of just buying a whole new already put together desktop (just really don't feel like building another one) specifically for gaming. I've been looking on Amazon for some and found some decent ones at pretty cheap prices at around $500-$600 so if it's not too much trouble I'd also like to know if anybody knows of some good gaming desktops. I don't really need a new monitor or keyboard or mouse but if it's included with it, that's fine. I mainly just play WoW and a couple of RTS games when it comes to PC gaming so it doesn't have to be the best one out there. I'd like to get one at around $500-$700. I should probably also mention that I download a lot of music and pictures so I'd like to have a big hard drive. I have a 1 TB HDD right now so I'd like to get a desktop with the same amount of space.

[Deleted]

You should try another video card / monitor / cable to make sure what the problem is

[glo]

Sounds more like your PSU not supplying enough power to your GPU at boot. We would need more details.

Regardless, anything of that age (5 years) isn't really worth repairing or replacing parts in. I would definitely agree that a new system is the way to go.

[darklogrus]

Sounds like what one of my old Pcs was doing, Win7 would boot up, Id get the icons appearing then my screen would just go black for a couple minutes and then everything was fine. Since I can get my GPU to occassionally act up im willing to bet yours is going as well.