# Red Lines computer freezes up



## lovewinter (Feb 25, 2011)

I was using the computer when red lines came down through screen. The computer froze up, the off switch did not work, I unpluged it. This went on and on, I took the computer emachines C6207 windows home addition XP to a computer store, said it was a bad hard drive.
I bought a new hard drive directly from Western Digital, I was trying to reinstall the recovery program when what happened,.... exactly red lines appear through screen and it is frozen. I manually unplug the computer, wait 10 minutes before it will restart and TRY to load the recovery program then the dreaded Red lines of death appear, if I tap the outside of the computer box they go away, but the computer is still frozen.
I dusted the inside completely with a blow dryer (cold) and reseated the RAM and re connected all the cables. Tried a portible desk fan with the side off while it tried to reboot, still red lines kill the process. 
HELP.


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## JennyJackson01 (Apr 4, 2010)

As you`ve blown the dust away from the inside of the case, I think I`d look towards the graphics outlet for the problem ...

Can you access the BIOS screen and if so, do the lines still appear if you leave it on that screen ?

If you`re using a seperate GPU card for the graphics, take it out and try using the onboard one instead. If that works, then it points to the card itself playing up. 

If you don`t have an onboard socket, could you borrow another card from a friend at all to replace the existing one as a test and/or try your card in another machine as confirmation.

Jenny


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## lovewinter (Feb 25, 2011)

Thank you for your reply, The Radon graphics card is on the motherboard can I remove it?
The computer when it will let me, I can start into BIOS, and no lines appear there.
however I bought it as a floor model 5 years ago at Costco and it has a unknown password, Cant figure it out. Took small battery out/replaced but did not reset the Bios password.
As far as the Graphics card, Im not that clever with computers, should I try to pluck out the graphics card? and or put in another on?


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## JennyJackson01 (Apr 4, 2010)

When you say the graphics card is on the motherboard, I`m not sure what you mean although I`m guessing it`s embedded in which case you can`t remove it. However if it`s an installed card, then it`s worth replacing it with another one to confirm or eliminate your existing one as the problem.

If you`re using an onboard chip then all you can do is to install a card in the AGP or PCI/E slot but not knowing that particular model, you`d have to see what`s printed on the motherboard next to the slot to find out which it takes.

If I`ve done it correctly, there should be a piccy of the two basic types of monitor sockets in this reply but if I`ve fluffed it up somehow, an onboard socket is vertical and in line with others like a serial, parallel, USB`s and perhaps a LAN compared with an installed card which is lower down and has a horizontal socket/s. 

If you`re not completely happy with digging about inside the case, I`d recommend taking it to your local computer shop and asking them to give it a once-over and see what they come up with.


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