[janlafata]

I have an old ASUS K8V-X SE motherboard that I slung together with a bunch of other spare parts to make a backup system. For starters it's got an AMD x64 processor on it, a decent NVidia graphics card, 2GB's of RAM and a brand new power supply. I loaded XP x86 on it and for the most part it's runs surprisingly well. I cannot get the USB to work on it, even after loading the VIA drivers, but that's another matter. What's bugging me is most of the time when I boot up and sometimes even when I resume from standby with the screen still black a strange looking electronic pattern appears, almost light plaid-like in appearance and in various colors. It doesn't stay on the screen long, then it goes away and the system boots up normally into Windows.

I've tried several video cards and they all do the same thing, but it is an older board, and with the USB not working and some other little annoyances it's very possible I've got a board that's just barely hanging on and I wouldn't lose any sleep if I junked it, but is in a Socket 754 and those are hard to find anymore, though I have recently found a refurbished one online that might be better than what I think might be a lemon board. One more thing..I don't believe it's the monitor...It's a $400 business class LG that used to run with no problems on my main system.

I guess I can live with the little bug for awhile before I either pop in a new board or possibly try another video card. I think those things corupt pretty easy sometimes from handling or static. But all of this takes place during the boot..so I'm clueless! The only theory I have is...Could it be power supply? I put in a brand new but cheap CoolMax 450 watt but I've never really been thrilled with that brand. Guess I could pop in a pare to test my theory.

[black-wolf]

Been working on a computer that last few days that I built years ago with that same motherboard. I would make sure the monitor works on another computer. If you are having the same issue with other GPU's I suspect the video card slot in the mobo. If you have another PSU it would be worth a try. Best guess at this point is the mobo.

[janlafata]

Is your USB working on that thing? I'm tempted just to junk this thing. I think some motherboards just are problematic after awhile and I may have also fallen victim to not making sure it's damaged by static electricity. I used to be so good about that, but I've gotten sloppy. That still may not be it, but I've found another refurb ASUS that I'm going to with on payday. The K8s-LA for $24. The biggest thing for me, besides this stupid little glitch is getting USB to work cause' I like transferring a lot of stuff on flash drives. Thanks for your input though

[black-wolf]

Yes everything is still working on that board. It's a wonder though knowing what it has been through. I have quite a few computers that I built with ASUS boards tha are 6-10 years old that are still running.

[managed]

It could be the ram if those video cards share some of it, I would test it with memtest86+

Mind you it could be 'normal' behaviour for a slowish computer.