Odd Video Distortion Problem

[kalg1975]

Greetings all,

So I have exhausted most avenues prior to comming here, and while on the surface it seems like a simple problem, most of the traditional fixes have not seemed to make any real difference.

First the preamble...ie specs;

Dell Box
Pentium 4 processor
128 ATI radeon 9800
1 gig of ram
Windows XP home
All the latest updates/drivers (catalyst 6.8 for vid driver)
Very clean machine, just reformated about 5 months ago


The problem:
After a short period of use the screen simply starts to "tare" and distort. It simply flickers at first, then becomes a garbled mess, that is not completely illegible, but all but unuseable. This happened mainly during gaming, but now occurs within minutes of booting up, and with no programs running whatsoever (other than background antivirus/utilities...nothing that has any graphical component at all)

This seemed at first to be a simple issue of overheating vid card. So opened the case, cleaned up the card (dust and such) and ran with case open and a nice little fan blowing on the card. Still happening and I am somewhat stumped as to where to go from here.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all

 

[dipique]

1) Try swapping out video card
2) Try a known-good monitor.

I'd actually guess the monitor... that happened to me recently.

Dan

 

[kalg1975]

Its a 17" LCD flat pannel monitor (Dell), so you think its possible that the monitor is simply crapping out? Not really all that interested in just running out and buying a brand new monitor, but I guess its possible that is the case.

Either way thanks for the response

 

[baronvongogo]

download everest:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

once installed run the program click computer in the left hand side then sensor. It will tell you your GPU(graphics card) temps post back with how hot it is.

 

[kalg1975]

Thanks for the great little program Baron.

I installed it, and in the sensor area there is nothing that specifically says GPU temp, there is a temp for WDC WC1200JD...etc.

That temp is 41C right now....just running browser.


I can't remember off hand if that is too hot or not <shrugs> Regardless, thanks for all the help. If that is indeed too hot, other than getting a new vid card (not really an option atm due to wife draining all my cash from me hehe) is there a cheap and quiet aftermarket cooling solution you might recomend. Judging by the case site you link, you know a thing or two about cooling Nice cases btw

 

[welsh]

you could try a PCI slot cooler fan, some work, some dont, some only drop it down a little bit, but yea, it could be the monitor, we didnt say run out and buy a new one, just grab one from a friend or if you have another that works fine.

 

[baronvongogo]

well seeing as you cant see your GPU temp do as was suggested earlier take your pc round a friends and change monitors and graphics cards with them. It does sound most likely as a monitor or GPU problem but the easiest solution is switch monitors first. If it still continues to mess up then change graphics cards with someone else if possible.

also 41C is for your hard drive temp that's fine so don't worry about that.