BSOD During startup. gfx related, need help.

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Operating System:XP Pro sp3
GFX Card: PCI-e ATI x800xt
Specs: Dell Dimension xpsgen3

Hi there, im looking for any advice i can get on an issue caused by my x800xt. Basically the other day while playing a game on my pc my computer was switched off at the mains by my m8. When i restarted my pc i was confronted with a looping sequence that consisted of my bios flashing, windows engaging ready to load, arriving at the windows boot screen and after a few seconds watching the progress bar doing its thing i can make out a blue screen of death before my PC automatically reboots and tries the whole process again and again.

Now i realise im only seeing the BSOD for a second due to an option in my BIOS which automatically restarts my pc whenever a critical error occurs and i can turn that off and find out what the BSOD says if requested to, but im going to try see if i can resolve the problem without revisiting the BSOD.

I found out the gfx card was the issue after formatting my hard drive and installing a new copy of XP. Everything is totally fine untill i install any driver for my card (ive tried the latest catalyst and omega drivers). When i install drivers for my card the loop i talked about comes back and i have to re-enter safe mode to uninstall the driver for the x800xt in order to regain access to windows in normal mode (the BSOD in the loop seems to happen about the time windows would normally totally load and try to access the video drivers.

I realise its totally possible that my card has died and there is no solution but for some reason when i connect my monitor to the card it still works, just not when i install the drivers, which of course are needed.



Edit: Might be of use to know that my PC has a fresh version of xp installed with the only things added to it being my modem drivers, xp sp1a and sp3, Sunbelt Personal firewall and Firefox. Im pretty sure its not any form of infection.

Also Windows hardware finder detects my gfx card and prompts me to install drivers for it which kind of makes me think the card is not broken, i also dont have onBoard graphics and my x800xt still functions fine with my monitor as long as i don't install the drivers.
 
Download the driver of your choice and then try and delete any data related to your previous video card drivers either manually or with some form of "driver cleaner". Reboot and head into Safe Mode, install the drivers from there.

Also, just a heads up, it very well could be your firewall causing the trouble.

Just for future reference, I'm not aware of any way to disable that automatic restart on a "system failure", it's altered from within Windows (right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced tab > Startup and Recovery settings).

You might want to take a look at the .dmp files created after the BSODs you experienced (or attach them here). They ought to be in C:\Windows\Minidump.
 
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