Graphic card going bad or signs of motherboard malfunctioning?

Ok folks. Just got a external HDD and figured I would back up my files and then clean install XP onto my HP a220n pc. After doing so, the monitor was freezing on me. Weird colors and lines through it after a few seconds of being logged into XP. I have updated all drivers fri nvidia site and still the problem exists.

I have a nvidia geforce mx4 graphcs card onboard and YES, this pc is OLD but I have hardly had any problems until now. I have put another pc I just repaired for my sister on thhe same monitor with the same cables etc and it works PERFECT, so it isn't the monitor.

The 100 million dollar question is: IS THIS MY PC'S MOBO STARTING TO MALFUNCTION OR IS IT JUST THE VIDEO CARD? If I had a spare graphics card I would just install it and see what happens but I don't, so before I set out to seond $$$ on a pci video card I wanted to hear some opinions. Is it possible another driver needs to be tweaked?

Thanks for the help, METMAN07.

that old of a computer its hard to tell without playing around with it. is the video card dedicated or integrated? if its a dedicated, does the mobo have an integrated card? if so, take out the dedicated card and just try it with the integrated and see if it works. if your running off an integrated card, or if there is none well thats a bit tricky without having another on hand. since it started happening after you plugged in the hard drive, that would leave one to think motherboard, though I don't think so. what your describing sounds like a video card issue, either with a driver or bad card. if I had to guess, I would say video card, but that is just a guess.

Sounds more like video card than MB. Most of the gforce mx 4 series were AGP cards. Some had fans that failed, many just had heat sinks. I have two still in running systems.

Yours is an integrated onboard in an ASUS mfg (to hp specs) mainboard using the nforce chipset. (mpeg2 encoding is done via the chipset)
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/documen...076&lang=en

I suspect the drivers you download from HP are tweaked for the video and chipset more than the current gforce reference drivers from nvidia.

Did you do a recovery install of the xp home from the recovery dvd set or use the recovery partition?

If you used a different xp version or a retail xp home, you might need to locate hp updated drivers (video AND chipset) and test them.

The screen artifacts you describe are usually caused by failing memory when it is on cards, but yours is onboard and uses your system memory.

Your system also should have an open agp8x slot but no pci-e slots. So a replacement video card should be agp8x or standard pci to work.

KIWS thanks a bunch. I am contacting HP now to see if I can get the drivers. I opened up the pc and saw that it has a fan attached to the mobo. It runs when the pc is on, so that not broken. Hopefully the drivers I find will fix the screen error. Thanks again, METMAN.

I can't get the pc to stay functional long enough to update the chipset, DAMN!!! All other components are UPDATED and 100% functional. I am just gonna NEWEGG a agp card and HOPE that it fixes the problem.