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Video problem mystery

Several weeks ago, I began experiencing a problem with my desktop computer. While playing games, polygon points would seem to stretch out into infinity sometimes tons of junk would appear on the screen, forcing me to restart to remove them. I found out that these are symptoms of failing video RAM, which I considered a reasonable thing as my video card was four years old.
I ordered a GeForce 7600GS 256MB as a replacement, but I experienced a totally different set of problems with it. In many games, white bars would appear on textures and text could become unreadable. Sometimes some textures would become rainbow-like. Other games would lock up (except for the sound) for a good 10-20 seconds every minute, rendering them totally unplayable. Because these problems were totally different than the ones on my old card, I assumed that perhaps I had just gotten a bad new card. I RMAed it and got a replacement in a couple weeks.
I installed the replacement 7600GS a couple days ago and I still experience the same problems.

I am reasonably certain that it is not the following:
-Drivers (I have reinstalled, uninstalled, cleaned out, and attempted different drivers to no effect)
-Over heating (the card remains at 60C or less when gaming)

So, what could possibly cause two different sets of problems on two different types of cards and the same problem on two of same card?
I am considering that it may be a motherboard issue, but I am reluctant to spend more money unless I am absolutely convinced that it will fix the issues.
Please respond with ideas.
 
Graphics glitches like the ones you described are almost always a result of memory errors, which can be caused by an overheating processor or failing memory chips. You've eliminated the possibility of video card memory or processor problems by trying different cards and different drivers so that leaves the system RAM or CPU.
 
Since I have two RAM sticks, I tried them each one at a time. I got the same problems as I did before with each.
I am now fairly certain that the problem lies in the motherboard. Is this conclusion agreeable?
 
Okay, I finally got around to switching the RAM off of the first slot (the one I tested the single sticks in) and that didn't fix anything.

Right now, I am running Memtest86 with my sticks in the second and third slots, and I am getting a couple errors on the 5th test with each pass.
Here is one of the errors:
Tst: 5
Pass: 0
Failing Address: 0003c998040 - 969.5MB (this is different with each error)
Good: 1800000
Bad: 01000000
Err-Bits: 00800000
Count: 1
Chan:

I'm not really sure what this means.
 
I moved the sticks to slots 1 and 2 and blew out all the dust using an air compressor. I no longer get the error in Memtest86, but I still have the video problem.
 
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