Blank display patterns on ATI Radeon HD 4650 .

[Bharat]

My PC specs are

Gigabyte G31 motherboard.
Intel Core2Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz.
2GB transcend ddr2 800MHz RAM.
Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 1GB ddr2.
Windows 7 ultimate 32bit.

It was a very old PC since 2009 .
Initially, I had 400W PSU which I replaced an year back with 200W PSU.

All these years, I played moderate games on this pc without any issues. Even with 200W PSU since an year gaming is never affected .

But since recently the GPU is giving blank display problem. The display stays black with display signal light on. The pc is struck, pressing num lock or caps lock wont change the leds. Doesn't respond to ctrl alt del taskmanager combination. Once a blank display comes, only way is to press the restart button.

The GPU gives this blank display in these two scenarios.

1. While the pc wakes up from sleep, its blank.
2. Normal startup gives blank display after it shows "starting windows" 7. At this point I press the restart button, and the next reboot safe mode option is chosen, then pc boots into safe mode without any display issues. Now when I restart windows from within the safe mode, then the next boot happens successfully without any issue. And when it boots like this, I don't see any deterioration in gaming performance.

So , this is what i do in order to boot into windows.
First Boot to get blank display >> Second boot into safe mode >> Reboot from safe mode into os.


I tried to investigate this.
Removed the graphics card and connected monitor to onboard vga. No such issue happens.
Kept another graphics card into the motherboard slot to see if this issue is present. No problems with other card.
Completely uninstalled winqual drivers and installed amd catalyst drivers. Problem persists with my card.


I don't think either the PSU or the drivers are the problem, since all these years it worked with the same drivers and PSU since an year.

Is the card damaged?
I can't understand the strange behavior of booting normally only when rebooted from safe mode.

 

[micropage7]

if you have tried to test it with othee card and runs fine, so the suspect is the card itself

just try to clean the card, the contact area then test it again

 

[Bharat]

I cleaned the card, and the contacts seem to be fine. Same problem.

When I disable the graphics card driver from device manager, it reboots fine with vga modes. But it doesn't make any sense using the card this way, even onboard graphics gives the proper monitor resolution.

Looks like the cards full functionality is lost, and only basic vga functionality is intact.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Change the psu. And i dont mean any generic Chinese made junk. I mean a proper psu from a reputable company/manufacturer

 

[jaggerwild]

Yeah^^^
Going from a 400W to a 200W, on a old core dual. Plus video card, the 200W gave out after a year cause it wasn't enough to begin with. Starving the GPU for power is what your doing.

 

[eidairaman1]

Get a 500 Watt PSU from Antec, Seasonic, Enermax. Take the cooler off and replace the thermal compound and thermalpads on the card.

If still no dice try the card in another machine, if still does the same bin the card and get a 7870.