Very Strange ATI Video Card Problem?

[Aradune]

Hello all, I have a very strange problem and I need some help.

I have an ATI Radeon 8500 (oem) and it has been working fine in my new pc until yesterday. In normal windows it operates fine, but when I try to load Quake3 it crashes within 10 minutes of playing. I get a series of colored vertical lines and the entire system crashes. I had this problem before and fixed it by re-seating the card about 50 times. The card seems well seated and there's no reason in the world it should be crashing like this again. This new motherboard I got about 2 months ago seats it quite easily.

I've tried re-seating it about 10 times so far and it has not fixed the problem. I haven't changed anything about my system in the past week at least. The card definately appears fully seated, no pins are visible sticking up out of the AGP slot. I have screwed it down as tight as I can and nothing seems to help. One of the times I tried to re-seat it, the PC wouldn't even display anything after turning it on. It seems if it isn't JUST RIGHT it won't work or will crash in games.

The card is almost a year old, perhaps it never really worked 100% to begin with. Is there anything I can do here or am I just screwed? Please, any helpful comments would be welcome.

 

[kurt454]

It sounds like memory problems on the card. Are you overclocked? Could also be heat. Try running your machine with the side off the case, and a small fan blowing in.

 

[rachaelsdad]

It could be heat. Or other things to try. Check what you are running on the 12 and 5 volt rails. Your PSU could be crapping out. Since it is in open GL did you download DX9 or Or update to a new Catalyst driver? What OS are you running. Another possibility since your card has to be seated perfectly is Elctrical discharge going back up to the monitor from the card. You might be able to fix this by turning off your machine and taking the CMOS battery out and completly discharging every thing for a couple of hours and/or trying a new cable.
I know DX9 sounds like it will have nothing to do with GL but it does have calls in it. Anyway here are some things to try first.