A Peculiar Incident Over The Weekend

[SkeleBear]

This is going to sound very odd, and, from my perspective, it is very odd.

Saturday night I was playing my Sims 2 game. Everything was working fine; no issues, glitches, blue screens, hang-ups, nothing. The game, and computer itself, were behaving properly.

Sunday morning I boot my computer up, and the monitor is telling me it's not getting a signal and going into 'sleep mode.' I check the cable, figure it's a glitch, and try again. And again. And again. And again twelve more times (yes, I am that persistant).

Convinced that my graphics card, my precious little Radeon X550, has expired at the young age of EIGHTEEN DAYS, I remove the card and reconnect my monitor cable to the onboard graphics and, Voila!, I have a functional monitor again. True, the onboard nVidia graphics suck and will not run the Sims 2 without more delays and hesitations than a stutterer operating a jackhammer, but at least my computer is usable for other things.

After a quick review of the receipt from my EIGHTEEN DAY OLD graphics card, I discover that the store will only accept returns within FOURTEEN days of purchase (which, of course, I suspect is a conspiracy to sell graphics adapters with an eighteen day survival rate). That leaves me to try to deal with the manufacturer's warranty, which has all the appeal of removing a rectal pimple with a chainsaw. By my estimation, if I follow through with the warranty service, I should actually have a working graphics card back from the manufacturer just in time for the Sims 4 to be released.

While I'm cursing my misfortune at having my graphics card die, the store warranty having been expired, and the manufacturer's warranty looking about as promising as the Green Party's chances of winning a Presidential election, my wife's computer, which is also experiencing problems with the Sims 2 game, and after an hour or so of playing, the computer crashes and cites a "graphics adapter failure" as the reason. Of course, I completely fail to recognize that her graphics problems occur at virtually the same time as mine, because I couldn't possibly begin to imagine what could happen to two separate computers that would affect both of their graphics adapters.

After reviewing all that I would have to do to get my graphics card repaired or replaced under manufacturer warranty, and also noticing that a few background applications that I had disabled had suddenly enabled themselves again, I decide that it's possible that maybe, just maybe, it was a software problem, and I reinstall my precious little Radeon X550 and reinstall the Catalyst software and Voila!, it's working like it did before it didn't. Somehow, and I have absolutely no idea how, something changed the settings on my computer back to a 'Restore Point' (which I am absolutely POSITIVE I did NOT do).

I'm not complaining, because I'm pretty damn happy that my graphics card is working again without me having to file a dozen 'trouble tickets' in triplicate.

Finally, my brain starts to put two and two together, and after I came up with seven, my wife advised me that two and two actually add up to four and then asked if it was possible that what happened to my computer graphics could also be the problem with her computer graphics. Lo and behold, after reinstalling her monitor driver and updating her chipset drivers again, Voila!, she is no longer having graphics card failures.

Now I have to ask: what are the chances of two separate computers being kicked back to a restore point at the same time and with neither computer being directed to do so?

Has anyone else had this problem?

[The Mule]

Nope...but it was a thoroughly enjoyable read...

[johndian]

I've always suspected that if you hack off a sim, they will get even with you somehow, somewhere, someway.
I also believe that this is definite proof that they have started their plan to take over the world one computer at a time.
 
Be afraid.
Be very afraid.:tongue8:

[veash]

Installing a new vidcard to replace the on board graphics can be tricky.  Unfortunately when you buy a new vidcard, the installation instructions were probably written by someone halfway around the world and translated so poorly that they're all but useless.  Anyhow, you need to uninstall the drivers and disable the onboard graphics before installing the new vidcard and drivers. Definitely make a backup copy first though.  I'm guessing you had a software/hardware conflict and that triggered your system to revert to the original drivers and graphics.

[SkeleBear]

Installing a new vidcard to replace the on board graphics can be tricky.  Unfortunately when you buy a new vidcard, the installation instructions were probably written by someone halfway around the world and translated so poorly that they're all but useless.  Anyhow, you need to uninstall the drivers and disable the onboard graphics before installing the new vidcard and drivers. Definitely make a backup copy first though.  I'm guessing you had a software/hardware conflict and that triggered your system to revert to the original drivers and graphics.

While I completely agree with your post, it unfortunately doesn't apply to what happened here.

First, this happened eighteen DAYS after I put the card in, not eighteen MINUTES after I put the card in. The card was functioning properly, running the Sims 2 daily for more than two weeks before this happened.

Secondly, it also happened to my wife's computer at the same time, and while I do appreciate the power of a hardware/software conflict and the impact it can have on a computer, I'm not entirely convinced that it's an "airborne" problem that can carry across the room on a breeze and screw up an entirely different computer as well.:sign1:  Of course, with Windows, anything's possible LOL.

The only thing that our two computers share is a cable modem, split by a router, which leaves me to question whether or not something with the ISP managed to mess up the computers.

Thank you, though, for the help. I do appreciate all offers of assistance and advice.