Campquake Senate

Lately when I've been playing some games of mine (Halo 1) it keeps getting to a point where the game freezes and crashes... some fatal error of some kind, pointing to my video card. I decided to run Dxdiag to see what was up. Everything seemed fine, I had the latest version of direct x, the files were fine, but for some reason my video card is now failing all of the Direct3D tests... keeps giving me this error:

Direct3D 7: Test failed at Step 8 (Creating 3D Device): HRESULT = 0x887602eb (error code)

Direct3D 8: Test failed at Step 8 (Creating 3D Device): HRESULT = 0x8876086a (3D not available)

Direct3D 9: Test failed at Step 8 (Creating 3D Device): HRESULT = 0x8876086a (3D not available)

I did not have this problem before... and I really should not have it at all... why is it happening now?

try reinstalling your video card drivers...

Strangely enough... it worked, thx

Something is very very wrong... I installed an updated driver, and it seemed to fix the problem, or at least it actually ran and passed the Direct3D tests on dxdiag, but then I go to play Halo again, and I get the same fatal error, saying, "Unable to initialize Direct3D", and when I go to do the dxdiag test again, I get the same error and it doesn't work... what is going on?

Try this.

Reinstall the drivers one more time, but before you launch Halo try right clicking on the shortcut you use to run Halo, select properties, go to the compatability tab and check the "run this program in compatibility mode for" and select win 95 or 98.

Then see if Halo will run.

Maybe your g-card is going bad do you have a spare you can try.

It's my laptop... and the card is not even half a year old.

I have had cards go bad with in a year, but have no experience with lap tops.