Display Corruption

[Valaire]

For the last 6 or so months now, occassionally when launching a game or browsing the web (more so, when launching a game) my display becomes corrupted with pink and green colors and wide vertical bands as well as horizontal dashes. I have had no changes in my computer and have an ATI Radeon 9700. I've tested two monitors and it still happens so its not the monitor.

In fact, as I started typing this, the display just in this box is becoming corrupted iwth pink dots and bright green hues. It used to go away by rebooting or shutting down for a few, but now it won't seem to go away at all.

Is my DirectX corrupted (necessitating a reinstall of OS) or is something wrong with my Radeon?

Thanks,
Chad

 

[sykopath79]

Sounds like a heat issue to me. Try getting some more air moving around the video card and see if it makes things better (you might try just opening the case & having a desk fan blowing into it for a while).

 

[4dm]

try running in safe mode for a while and see if the problem occurs there. If it does not go away, it is definitely a hardware problem (ie. heat, damaged component, etc.)
If the problem stops happening in safe mode, it is likely software related. Try reinstalling your video card drivers, or rolling back to a previous version.

 

[Valaire]

Okay a few things.

1. It sometimes corrupts during start-up before the Windows OS, in the BIOS, and during the Windows load.
2. It happens in safe mode.
3. This current dilemma starrtted when my computer was idle and I've never had a heating issue with my video card. I did however open it up and blow into it with a fan and clear out the dust, but it wasn't bad at all.
4. I've copied all drivers to a CD in case I reinstall Windows, which would be a pain in the ass for me at the moment. I have the feeling that sadly I'm looking at a bad video card. I e-mailed Sapphire Tech because I think I have a 3 year warranty for a Radeon 9700 Pro Retail (their site is useless regarding information). My 1 year warranty has expired from NewEgg. I've already seen on their forums that their tech support and RMA services are unresponsive so we'll see how that goes.
5. It worked fine for like 3 hours last night randomly on one boot. Was able to play a computer game and it was fine. A few reboots later, I'm back to the magenta curse of death.

Any other ideas?

 

[Askalon]

Reseat the video card
Reseat the monitor cable
check it with another monitor to verify if it is video card or Monitor.
try with another video card.

Sorry, not very helpful, but this is the standard when doing Troubleshooting. You may have already done all this, but you didn't says so I thought I would give it a shot.

 

[Valaire]

Hi, I just reseated my video card. Rebooted and desktop was clean. Launched a game and within seconds the large vertical green bands appeared. Now on reboot the magenta bands are back all over the place, ,so no luck.

I wish I could post a screenshot of this, but my digital camera doesn't have its usb plug with me so it's kind of useless, and screenshotting won't show the distortion I don't think. If I un-mazimize a window in the OS and drag it around,t he entire window becomes a purple mess.

In an old game I am testing this with, large vertical green bands will appear, followed by some purple squigly lines, and also black texture corruption patches on the ground in the 3d engine.