Ok to start with I'll tell you how this problem began and hopefully you can tell me what the problem is.

It all started when I was playing Call of Duty 2 online where I started to get flickering on my pc screen. I thought nothing of it, until it became more frequent and then suddenly the game would freeze and I got a screen full of red dots and a black background :S. Whenever this happened I had to just switch my computer off by the tower. It then became a bigger problem because my desktop and everything on my PC Screen would be pixelated and very unclear. My computer automatically changed my resolution and color settings to LOW and would not let me change them any higher.

My first thoughts was that there was a problem with my Monitor but I asked many people and majority said it was my graphics card. So I took my PC apart removed the graphics card and let it cool down for a while. Put it back in and YES everything was back to normal.. until about 20 mins later. My PC froze and I had to had to switch it off at the tower again. Now I can't even get to the Windows XP login page where you put your password in, the screen just goes black and nothing happens.

At the moment im not really sure what it can be, I'm pretty sure its out of my monitor, gfx card, processor or my power supply. Also I checked my CPU Temperature and it was 55C, I have no idea if that's normal or not but something tells me that's a little hot. I didn't think the temp in my PC would be a problem because I have 4 fans

Can any of you tell me what my problem could be and how I could fix it?

Any solutions would be great, thanks alot.

It definetly sounds like your graphics card is either dying, or its overheating causing that. It is doing exactly what our gateway was doing when we put a new graphics card in it and tried to play games, look ugly and strange, freeze, then reboot or just go blank. check the fan on your graphics card. it may be broken.

this happened to me before, when it reaches the blakc screen, the computer is still powering but you receive no image?

yeah by the sounds of it your gfx card has diead all ready

Hi IneedHelp7,

Welcome to PCHF,
There are a coule of things we could do to get a better idea of what's causing the problems.
Firstly check that the fans and heatsinks on your cpu and gfx card are clear of dust, Please make sure that if you find there is a lot of dust, before you try to clean it out that you turn the pc off at the plug (leaving the power cable in) and press the power button a couple of times to discharge any power, then touch the case metal for a couple of seconds to discharge any static you may have. Ideally use a "canned air" blower to shift the dust otherwise just blow hard a few times to clear the worst of it(keep your eyes closed, this is from personal experience).

Secondly you could try to download and install the app from here this should allow you to get readings from most of the pc as far as temps go. Post the for us and we'll be able to comment further.

Exactly mate.

Btw thank you guys for replying Ok tonight I had my nextdoor neighbour around and he's pretty good with this sort of thing. He brought around his graphics card to test if it was my Gfx card causing the problem (Part of it was) but the main problem is having no image like you said above sam_Wood. So the first thing we did is press F8 when the computer started up to bring up 'Safe Mode' etc. We tried Safe Mode itself and a couple of other things but no luck. So then he said to me we have to reinstall windows but unfortunately for me I've lost it

I'm really confused I don't know if all Windows XP Discs are all the same or if every model has its own specific Disc?? I've been looking around the net for one but to be honest I'm not really sure what I'm looking for.. Can any of you guys tell me the exact installation disc I need to reinstall windows??

And I think I know what caused this problem, last night when I could just about get an image I asked around for some help. Someone told me to update my graphic cards driver from Nvidia.com and he gave me the link to the exact download. Unfortunately he assumed I had vista but I have XP.. My neighbour thinks this may have corrupted with XP and mucked it up altogether.

If any of you guys can come up with any other solutions I would be grateful but at the moment all I can think of is reinstalling windows altogether, but I NEED the disc lol.

Thanks again

does your pc have built in graphics? (so it can run without a graphics card in)

if so, load it up and see if u can log on. if u can, put in ur graphics card drivers and then reinstall them. then put in ur graphics card and see what happens.