gfx problem or PSU or something else??

[Okasa]

new build and everything seems to be going ok except for one thing. at a seemingly random interval the screen gets filled up with organized vertical lines maybe 3mm tall and .5mm wide. they seem to be symmetrical. i can still use mouse (tho that seems to be now represented by a small square of these lines and the cursor itself. Then approx 5seconds or so later the screen goes black. the computer dosent restart, i have to do that manually the screen just goes black and does not seem to come back. this seems to happen approx every few hours or so at random intervals.

pertinant hardware:
antec NEO 500W PSU
BFG 7900GT
AMD 4200+ Dual
Asus M2N-SLI DLX

any other hardware questions let me know.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Sounds like a problem with your video card. Perhaps heat, drivers?

 

[Okasa]

heat seems approx constant at 37C but i will try a different driver perhaps and see if that will solve the prob, but i am using NVIDIA 91.31 for 32bit which is the latest driver

 

[Vee]

This is most likely a problem with your video card.
37C ? You mean the CPU, I suppose? Since video chips usually gets much hotter.
CPU temperature is irrelevant.

It may be something funny with your driver, but you may also want to check the hardware.
Do you have a clocking utility for your videocard?
If you do, then you can prob check temperature there. And maybe set an alarm for the temp as well.
The clocking utility can probably also be used to underclock your videocard. My suggestion is that you try that. Lower clocks about 20%, the video memory clock too, and see if that fixes the problem. If it does, then the problem is not with the driver and you know what to tackle. To get back to the old clocks you can try to achieve much better cooling (leave the case open for a start) or better power supply to your videocard. Further down the road if it doesn't work at default clocks with proper cooling and power you may consider the card defect.

 

[Okasa]

no according to my nvidia console my graphics card temp is 37C, it went down 20C after putting a zalman heatsink on it. i also installed an older driver now, i am running 84.21 drivers and the problem happened again. i also did a prime95 for several hours without the problem occuring. my psu is pretty nice and the voltages appear pretty constant so im not sure if that is the problem.