Video card dead?

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Sun Sep 29, 2019 2:14 am

When I boot into Windows 10 I suddenly have very low resolution and a regular pattern of dots/lines on the screen. Also, only my left monitor works, not the 2nd monitor.

Device Manager Properties for video card says "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)"

I reinstalled NVIDIA drivers.

I don't use this computer much and I had pretty recently made a few changes to the machine like some Windows 10 updates, uninstalled virus scanner because CPU usage was high (was going to re-install or find a different one).

What else should I try? I'm totally cool with buying a $50 video card to keep this old machine going. Not so cool if I buy that video card and problem isn't solved though!

Any help would be appreciated.

Post by **Philip** » Sun Sep 29, 2019 9:21 am

Code 43 is just a generic error, it typically indicates a problem with either software(driver) or the hardware..

I would uninstall the Nvidia driver, then reboot before installing one, so that Windows just loads generic video drivers. You may even have to do this in safe mode. Are you getting the error in Device manager then? What about in Safe Mode? Install a fresh Nvidia driver only after you've cleaned all old drivers. The card may be toast, just try a few more steps before changing it, seems it is not completely dead if you still see your desktop at all.

Also, I think there was some Nvidia code 43 error issue with the Windows 10 May 2019 update and Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs, there may be a hotfix available, or definitely try a different version of the Nvidia drivers.

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Sun Sep 29, 2019 9:32 am

Ok I’ll give those a shot. My parting thought before calling it a night was that it was a windows update issue.

I have to admit though I did a number of unusual things such as having to boot into safe mode to use a cleanup tool to uninstall Avast antivirus.

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Sun Sep 29, 2019 4:59 pm

It seems like the latest NVIDIA drivers were 342.01 and the hotfix appears to be 430.97 which are much more recent than this video card (GeForce 260 GTX!!!) can take.

Uninstalling the drivers and using some kind of Windows 10 driver at least has me operating at a normal resolution now.

I haven't tried any games to test how well this driver works. I'm also thinking without the NVIDA tools there will be fewer things to play with as far as color adjustments, tweaking settings etc.

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:17 pm