Screen corruption problems

[Bender81]

Hey, I'm having a MAJOR problem with my screen lately. I'm pretty sure it's a hardware problem of sorts and not the monitor. I have the following:

ABIT NF7 mobo
barton 2500+
1g Samsung RAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

Not sure what else might be needed, but none of the above are overclocked atm. Basically the problem is this:
http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs101&d=06211&f=verticalbars.jpg

Computer starts off fine, but after a while starts looking like that. I noticed that when I play a game like Warcraft 3 it starts making it worse (like in the pic). All the text I'm typing right now is hard to read because of it! lol. Please help! Thanks in advance.

 

[WhiteNinjaRyu]

Just making sure real quick. Is the fan on your video card still running?

 

[Bender81]

Just checked and it is.

 

[FlashDude]

if you have uninstalled and used a driver cleaner then installed the newest radeon drivers and this still happens the video card is NFG

 

[Bender81]

K, I've tried removing the vid card to check it and there was a lot of dust in the heatsink (which I didn't expect since it's facing down). I cleared it all out with an air duster and it's been better, BUT it still does happen after a while, it's just stays problem free much longer now. When the problem does hit the corruption is pretty bad though (screenshot x3 o.0). So does it seem like a heating problem? The heatsink on the vid card wiggles a bit when I touch it, is it supposed to be like that or should it be more secure? Thanks.

 

[curtcheese64]

It looks like a heat issue. It is probably being caused by your heatsink being improperly mounted. Remove the heatsink and remount it with some Arctic Silver 5. The heatsink should be secure, not wiggling.

 

[Bender81]

*sigh, I was afraid that was the problem. Weird that it got like that though 'cause I never oc'd the card or even removed it from the case for the years that I've had it.