Video Errors. Time for a new video card?

[NickCrocco]

Hello all. Before I start, here are my specs:

ABIT AI7 Socket 478 Intel 865PE ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Pentium 4 3.0C Northwood 800MHz FSB Socket 478
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb (with latest drivers, no catalyst)
GeIL Ultra 1gb RAM (DDR550 PC 4400 4 x 256MB)
Windows XP sp2

It's about 2 years old.

About a month or so ago, I was experiencing strange 'fragments' popping up on my screen every now and then. They seemed like little multi-colored error clusters, as seen in the screenshot here:

Error

Please note that I am not running Vista, it is just an XP skin.

The problem peaked when my computer would not show a screen on startup, it would just start up black with out of range monitor notice, however, I knew it was starting okay because it would play the Windows welcome sound.

After reinstalling all the drivers and physcially re-installing the video card itself, it just started working okay again. No errors.

Just today, the problem started again. No black screen on startup this time, but I receive errors when running hardware accelerated applications. I will also receive the lines on my desktop as well, but when I turn off all hardware accelerations, they disappear. Here are screenshots of an example of what happens when in a game:

Error 01
Error 02
Error 03

So what do you guys think? Definitely video card problem? The problem I have if it is a video card, is that since my motherboard doesn't support PCIe16, it doesn't seem like it's worth buying another agp card... What do you guys think?

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Are you overclocking at all?

 

[NickCrocco]

Nope!

 

[buzzsaw13]

Slap another video card into your system and make sure your video card is the cause of it.

 

[NickCrocco]

Here's an update:

So last night I completely tore apart my computer. I disconnected and reconnected everything, including the CPU, heatsink, video card etc... After double checking all the connections, hooked everything back up, my computer was running fine. No errors. I was even able to play a 3d game for about 2 hours perfectly. However, the game crashed to the desktop and the artifacting started again. I even turned off hardware acceleration, but I still received the weird error lines, like in the first screenshot. Tonight I'm going to go buy a new video card (making sure the place I buy it from accepts returns on opened items just in case) and see if that will fix it. Leaning toward a ATI x1600 pro 512mb AGP, but I might get the BFG FX6800 GT 256MB GT OC. My motherboard doesn't support PCI X 16. Any reccommendations?

If it's not the video card causing the problems, what else could be causing them? Thanks so much!

 

[pkme2]

AFAIK how's your PSU? Try using another card if possible. If you got a friendly neighborhood nerd or computer shop person, then it would be easier. Good luck.

 

[NickCrocco]

My tower is only a few months old, because my old PSU was having problems. It is a Antec Performance One P150 Silver Computer Case with a 430w power supply.

 

[pkme2]

Try changing out your power supply, your power supply looks suspect. I shouldn't have believed your ATI could have been at fault. Its a good card for gaming or whatever.

 

[NickCrocco]

Would a faulty power supply be the cause of those weird 3d video errors as seen in the game shots? The meshes on the models stretch, wrong textures being used, etc...?

 

[Tacoman]

hey i realized that this post is old but im having a similar issue as you arecan you help?

 

[Kaldorine]

This post is 6 yrs old... I thought i was trippin!

 

[lyssword]

this is related to video card memory. Try underclocking it or something. Or get a new one.

 

[Denithor]

hey i realized that this post is old but im having a similar issue as you arecan you help?

Not just old, ancient! I looked at that system rig, described as being 2 years old, laughed out loud! Then realized when it was posted...

BTW, welcome to the forums! It probably would have been better to just create a new thread rather than resurrect this old one, but whatever, we'll still try to help you.

Now, are you having graphical artifacts like shown in the pictures above?

What video card are you using? How old is it? What power supply?

Give us a little detail and we can point you in the right direction.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Not just old, ancient! I looked at that system rig, described as being 2 years old, laughed out loud! Then realized when it was posted...

Same... I was like new gpu??? You need a new system!

 

[Tacoman]

my power suplies is 750 watts and my graphics card is about 2 yrs old ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 Series

 

[Tacoman]

this is an old post D: D: D: D: D: D: D:

 

[Tacoman]

uhm my graphics card is 2 yrs old ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 Series amd anthlon dual core X64 780W 6GB of DIMM DDR2 and the computer is about 4 yrs old.

 

[rickon66]

Sounds like a dumb question, but make sure the fan on the card is running. I had the same problems on one of my old computers and found that the fan was only running part of the time. Put an old aftermarket cooler on it and problem went away.

 

[Tacoman]

there aint a fan on my graphics card but ill try the processor!

 

[Tacoman]

yeah it didnt work nothing happened

 

[Plimogz]

this is related to video card memory. Try underclocking it or something. Or get a new one.

have you tried this? I've had a couple of cards over the years that just wouldn't handle stock clocks anymore, weren't under warranty at that point in time, and could function just fine with reduced memory clocks.

If this is in fact the problem, the working frequencies can just be edited into the BIOS and the crippled card acts just like you'd expect, only a little slower.