Strange lines running up my screen

[eLiu]

Hey guys,
I've recently been getting some really strange lines running up my screen. It's not the refresh rate, b/c the lines are visible at 60-75hz. It's not the resolution or the color depth either.

More on the lines...they don't look like flickering. They are gray-ish in color; thus they are most noticeable against a white or other light colored background. They vary in width too...sometimes they're like maybe a few mm tall, other times a good cm or so. The speed at which they move up/down the screen also varies a lot.

Either way, it's very annoying...and I can't imagine this being good for my eyes. I've tried reinstalling my video card drivers, but that didn't seem to have any effect. I don't have any spare video cards to swap; I do have another monitor, but it's old/heavy as hell...so I won't try if I can avoid it, hehe.

thanks in advance,
-Eric

edit: in addition to what i said below...ok...i think death is near. LeLet's see--now it stopped updating the screen, so i can't see what im typing...so plz excuse typos. athnks.... anyhow, the heatsink is VERY hot...like evenhotter than the one on my thunderbird. that aint good. im also getting lots of visual artifacts now, and i get artifacts on the bios bootup screens...but oddly, no problems viewing the bios itself (tho everything else is fmessed up). fun.... >.<

 

[Cerb]

Do they show up in screenshots?
Do their properties change if you mess w/ the video card clock speed (I noticed one is OC'd)?
Does it appear to be affecting the shape of the display? As in, are the edges of the screen bending as it moves?

 

[eLiu]

Originally posted by: Cerb
Do they show up in screenshots?
Do their properties change if you mess w/ the video card clock speed (I noticed one is OC'd)?
Does it appear to be affecting the shape of the display? As in, are the edges of the screen bending as it moves?

They don't show up in screenshots. And, the video card isn't OC'd anymore, I turned that off a while ago...just forgot to update it. And the display is otherwise unaffected. There isn't any flickering (like you'd see at 60hz--i run 75hz, 1280x1024), no image bending, no other irregularities (well, at least none that I've noticed).

Edit: Come to think of it, there is one more thing. Every now and then, the screen will go completely black for some time (a few seconds to about a minute), and then come back. Sometimes it'll return to normal, other times it returns in 640x480, with a dialogue box saying a device has failed/reboot immediately.

Edit 2: Seems like this thing is cursed...now the screen goes black/returns like every 5 minutes. Omg...wtf.

 

[chr6]

might sound dumb, but did you make sure the video card is seated properly. sometimes if it isn't seated all the way, but partially, it can cause problems similar to yours. gl

 

[eLiu]

Originally posted by: chr6
might sound dumb, but did you make sure the video card is seated properly. sometimes if it isn't seated all the way, but partially, it can cause problems similar to yours. gl

Yup, I pulled it out and put it back in to make sure--I'm sure it's seated properly.

 

[lenjack]

I think its the video card. I've seen this before.

 

[Bucksnort]

What you are seeing may be the screen mask wires. It usually happens with new monitors. To get rid of seeing them, open a word processor or such to give a white screen for about 10 minutes then gently hit the sides of the monitor and that will seat them. The black screen can be due to the video driver provided you have a ATI card. The monitor signal loss bug seems to be worse with the newest cat driver. 4.3 does not do it in my case but 4.4 does. What is the monitor and video card pls.

 

[eLiu]

sorry for not updating...but uh, it was the video card. soon after i posted the last update, it went haywire and completely died...the system wouldn't even boot. so I replaced it with somethin old, and I'm now looking for a 9800pro...hehe