Broken Graphics card?

[Jaken]

Hi,

I bought a Saphire X800 Pro last Christmas and today the screen suddenly displayed these vertical black lines with a white background, when this happened I had to restart then everything was ok again for a while. I then went out for about 20 mins after a restart, came back and the same thing had occured. From this point on the same thing had kept happening but getting worse, basically it happens now as soon as i log into windows and some times before i get into log in screen or even BIOS.
I then left my computer for a few hours and went back to it and was able to log on, i then left the room whilst leaving a download of the latest ATI drivers going, when i got back (about 20 miins later) the same thing had happened.
I have noticed though that when the screen messes up and the lines appear, i am able to access the menu and log off by using the keyboard, i can also hear different operations running in the background such as the log on noise.
I checked to see if all the fans were working and they all seem to be operational.
I think the graphics card has broken, but i am just posting to get different opinions on the situatiion and what course of action i should take.

/thanks for any help

 

[aGreenAgent]

It could just be overheating. Make sure all the PCI cards are as far away from it as possible.

 

[Jaken]

Hmm, they have always been the same distance for the last 4-5 months, so i dont see why it would suddenly start overheating now. :S

 

[theMan]

check the temps. maybe the fan got caked with dust.

 

[aGreenAgent]

It's a computer, it never makes sense, you just fool around with stuff and sometimes it starts working.

 

[Jaken]

Originally posted by: theman
check the temps. maybe the fan got caked with dust.

Would i check these by going into the BIOS?

 

[theMan]

dont know about ati, but nvidia has a utility in windows that monitors temps. youll have to ask some ati people around here. it wont be in the bios.

 

[BillyBobJoel71]

the one thing on earth that never fixes on itself, and can never be fixed by man: a computer.

 

[aGreenAgent]

Originally posted by: Jaken

Originally posted by: theman
check the temps. maybe the fan got caked with dust.

Would i check these by going into the BIOS?

Touch the heatsink with your finger. If you get burnt, it's too hot. If you don't, it's fine.

 

[villageidiot111]

I believe ATI tool will list the temps for that particular card. Download that to see your temps. It definately sounds like a temperature problem. Perhaps the heatsink is not seated properly, in which case you could fix it or rma it.

 

[Jaken]

My friend managed to lend me one of his old graphics cards that he does not use anymore, but when i put it in the screen either goes blank after a certain amount of time or hangs, last time i booted up with it, the whole computer powered down which was a first. I also noticed that on my hardware monitoring utility it is flashing saying that the ATX power is below 10v, but i have read in many places that sometimes these hardware utilities are not 100% accurate, especially with DFI 250GB nForce3 mobos.

I have also put the original graphics card which i thought had broke into my friends system, and everything is working fine. So at the moment i think that it could be a possible PSU problem, or maybe something wrong with my mobo. Strange thing is though that i upgraded to a 480w Thermtake PSU at christmas, so I would be really surprised if that was the problem.

Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[aGreenAgent]

Sounds like mobo to me if it works in your friend's computer. Get a new one and if the problem keeps happening, you can take it back

 

[Bushman5]

Well to me sounds like eitehr your psu or your mobo, put all your friends stuff ( if he lets u ) onto your mobo and run a game for a few hours see if u see any lines, if notihng then its your psu. or go rite to it( i think 50% of problems are caused by power ) download motehr board monitor 5 and monitor the rails.

 

[Jaken]

Sorry for the late reply, but have has a lot of uni work lately.
Anyway, we swapped around PSU's and i am now using my mates and everything is working. So it must have been the PSU. Kinda annoying though, because my PSU i was using was a Thermtake 560w i got at christmas for around £90 at a local computer store, will have to see if they will take it back.

Thanks for the help though guys.

 

[theMan]

they better take it back, that is really bad.

 

[Jaken]

Heh, strange thing just happened. I was adimant that my PSU wasnt broken. So we put it back in and now everythings fine...lol.
Strange, must have been a dust build up or something...