Purple Screen of Death?

So today, while playing Runescape, as is per usual, completely randomly, my entire screen went purple. I could not see anything, but sounds were still playing, and I could see my mouse and move it around, but the rest of the screen was a solid shade of purple.

I googled the problem, and found nothing useful at all. I read a lot about some "purple screen of death" experienced on Vista, but thats not anything like the problem I had. I'm using a Windows XP, the Proffessional version I think, but I could be wrong. Can anyone help?

I pressed the sleep button to make the computer sleep, and turned it back on, and everything was fine, btw. Seems to be no lasting damage, but I could be wrong...

Call me crazy, but this sounds like your display driver or something went all to [bleep] for a moment... At least, until you forced whatever it was clear with the sleep button. :-k

As a first question, hopefully to resolve this forever... What graphics card are you using? (If you don't know, call up "dxdiag" from wherever you use to manually launch programs.) :-s

BTW, I'm sure if I don't figure this out, blade995, Cruiser, ClareJonsson, and/or sloter will be able to help you figure it out. 8-)

====================

Update, 53 minutes later:

There is a chance that your motherboard's memory voltage may be set incorrectly for some unknown reason. (Such as a failed BIOS battery.) So you'll want to check that out too. :?

For everyone else, here's links to the proof that it could potentially be this, since I know some of you won't believe me...

Link to Google Search page...

Direct Link to article found via Google Search: http://discussions.hardwarecentral.com/showthread.php?t=179646

====================

~D. V. Devnull

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT

Thats my graphics card. This happened once before to my brother (atleast once..), and the only reason I knew to make it sleep was because thats what he did. So it's a recurring thing it looks like. The graphics card is fairly new... within the year I'm certain.

Well I've never heard of a purple screen of death so I'm going to take a shot in the dark. Try updating your graphics drivers.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x ... _whql.html

What kind of screen are you using? CRT. LCD or Plasma?

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT

 

 

 

Thats my graphics card. This happened once before to my brother (atleast once..), and the only reason I knew to make it sleep was because thats what he did. So it's a recurring thing it looks like. The graphics card is fairly new... within the year I'm certain.

blakdragon39, before you do much more, first make sure you have enough wattage/voltage (e.g.: a big enough PSU) for your Graphics Card. Then if you haven't checked your RAM voltage already, check that too. If all of that checks out, definitely try blade995's suggestion below. :geek:

Well I've never heard of a purple screen of death so I'm going to take a shot in the dark. Try updating your graphics drivers.

 

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x ... _whql.html

One way or another, this problem is getting fixed without negative impact to you and your PC, blakdragon39. There are many of us here in T&C who have the potential to find what's causing this, and/or provide the solution without knowing it. 8-)

BTW, would you please let us know what happens after you try all of the above that are possibly necessary to try to fix this??? :-s

And as for this...

What kind of screen are you using? CRT. LCD or Plasma?

Iamanarab, that's not going to affect a problem that is inside their PC and/or OS... The screen/monitor is totally external. -.-

~D. V. Devnull

I have 8800GTX, which is of the same series. Entire screen goes random colour when the video card shuts itself down because of overheating

Oh, Im sorry Devnull, I didnt realise that a problem with his screen COULDNT possibly be with the screen itself

EDIT: How old is the monitor itself, if the screen is turning lilac/purple, its a sign your blue colour tube is on the way out

As far as i can remember, the "PSOD" occurs when there's a conflict between a driver and the desktop window manager.

It is most likely to be your driver for the video card. Go to www.nvidia.com and download the latest driver for it.

Update all other drivers too.

Konzserwas - You need to get better air circulation in your computer. Speed up the fan (if it isn't on max) or buy a new custom fan to put on.

Uhh i was trying to help with teh PSOD, not asking for help :P I know how to halndle my temps :-w

if its purple, its gay.

straighten your computer out.

if its purple, its gay.

 

 

 

straighten your computer out.

lol thanks :XD:

It's not the screen (which is LCD I believe, but I really don't know much about the hardware of a computer :P), because I could still see the mouse and move it around and stuff. The place that the computer is in, is open in the back for ventilation, but we always keep the front door of the cabinet open too while it's running. I'll try updating the driver and stuff though, and see how that goes. Thanks to everyone who's helped so far. :mrgreen:

EDIT: Okay so I went to that link for updating the driver, and it says that that version is for Windows Vista, but we're using XP. I'll post a pic of my display diagnostics here, and see if anyone can tell me if I am up-to-date, as I really don't know enough myself to be able to tell. :XD: :(

EDIT2: Here's the picture.

XP drivers: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_175.16_whql.html

Oh and D_V this should have nothing to due with ram voltage. If it's overvolted it will either work exactly the same or crap out, depending on how much more voltage you are giving it. If you said bad ram, that would maybe make a little more sense. I currently have my ram overvolted with no problems.

Something like this happened to me before, on my old laptop, when it was still running XP. Purple screen, could hear sounds fine, and mouse worked okay, but nothing else would respond.

My best guess is that something went wrong with the memory. However, it's not a serious error (as the Big Red Button saved my bacon back then too), so what I'd advise you do is to just turn off the computer for an hour so the RAM can "reset".

I hold doubts that this was a graphics driver issue. Drivers shouldn't just "stop working" at random. Something didn't load right.

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/download.html

Scan your pc with that program. It it finds any errors - your ram is dead. (even 1 error means that)

Oh and D_V this should have nothing to due with ram voltage. If it's overvolted it will either work exactly the same or crap out, depending on how much more voltage you are giving it. If you said bad ram, that would maybe make a little more sense. I currently have my ram overvolted with no problems.

Blade, I suggest you go re-read the item I provided a link to. The person whose problem I came across had a "RAM UnderVoltage", NOT a "RAM OverVoltage"... That's why I even considered this situation a possibility, as I figured being overvoltage would have been ludicrous. :|

~D. V. Devnull

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/download.html

 

 

 

Scan your pc with that program. It it finds any errors - your ram is dead. (even 1 error means that)

Personally I have found memtest to be unreliable lately. I let it run thought a dozen cycles and it found no errors on all my sticks... then ran through it the next day (hadn't used the ram since) and it picked up about 3-4 errors on one stick. 1 on another; 0 on the other two. And after the previous day I wasn't sure so tried again a few hours later; and the sticks which "had no errors" suddenly had some and the two which did no longer had any.

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/download.html

 

 

 

Scan your pc with that program. It it finds any errors - your ram is dead. (even 1 error means that)

 

Personally I have found memtest to be unreliable lately. I let it run thought a dozen cycles and it found no errors on all my sticks... then ran through it the next day (hadn't used the ram since) and it picked up about 3-4 errors on one stick. 1 on another; 0 on the other two. And after the previous day I wasn't sure so tried again a few hours later; and the sticks which "had no errors" suddenly had some and the two which did no longer had any.

Memtest86 or Memtest86+ ?