Having problems with games! Bad video card?

[IamKong03]

Hello all, long time member but new user account.

My current situation is to help my neighbor across the street with his gaming errors. His relevent specs consist of a Pentium 3 866mhz, 256mb RAM, Windows XP Pro, Direct X9, and Gainward GF3 Ti4200 w/ Vantec iCEBERQ4 Pro and ramsinks... originally thought a possible heat problem, extra case fans were also added for a total of 3 standard 80mm Antec fans.

So the games in question are Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, and RTCW.

Both GTA-VC and RTCW suffer the same problem, color static within minutes of playing the game (the best way to describe it, looks like a tv with no reception but in color instead of black and white, lol) screen can only be restored by turning off the computer completely, simply restarting doesnt work.

Now GTA3 suffers from white blocks where text should be displayed.

All games have been patched and yes the video card drivers are updated.

I don't know where to start troubleshooting this problem, I would appreciate some input.

Thanks,
Kong

 

[Viper96720]

Pop your card in the system. If games run fine then it's the video card.

 

[IamKong03]

i need some more suggestions to try while I'm over there tomorrow, thanks..

 

[Mem]

Try the card in another PC,that`ll show if it`s faulty or not,my guess it`s,you could try Driver Cleaner to make sure you`ve a clean install of drivers.


Driver Cleaner link. .