White lines and PC not starting

[Lannigan]

Hello all, I hope you can help. Today as I was playing a game, I experienced a problem when the game froze, and white lines going horizantally and vertically across my screen appeared. I restarted my PC and it was ok. Later playing a different game the same problem occured, so I restarted my PC again, however this time the intially screen and all following screens where not functioning correctly. The Asus screen had the white lines, the following screen to tell me windows did not start up properly is discoloured and staticy, and the windows loading screen had moving horizantal lines going down. After a few restarts I got it to work. Later on, Playing the same game as teh second time it happened again. However now, after the windows loading screen my pc goes black, and after a few minutes just restarts. If anyone could please assist me in fixing this, or diagnosing the problem, it would be appreciated. My PC is approximatly 3 years old. Asus motherboard, AMD 64 single core processor, and a Geforce 7600 GT. Up until today it was running smoothly.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Osiris]

Video Card over heating, possibly?

Does it work fine when your not playing any games?

Maybe reseat the card, update drivers, check for dust buidup within the case and the fan on the VC.....

 

[Lannigan]

Nope, it no longer starts anymore, it goes as far as the windows loading screen, goes black and restarts, and everything up till then is distorted and covered in lines.

 

[Osiris]

Do you have onboard video?

 

[TheMajor]

Did you flash a custom video card BIOS with overclocked settings? Did you overclock it at all? If not, you have to check for overheating. Make sure the heatsink of the video card is still fixed to the card. Make sure the card is properly seated in the motherboard slot.

Your video memory could be broken. You can get that same card for almost nothing.

 

[Lannigan]

No I did not overclock at all. So I figured it was probably my graphics card since it happened all whilst playing game till it gave up entirerly. The fan still seems to be working however, so I guess the card itself is just fried? I don't mind getting a new card, I just wanted to be sure that it is a new card I need. (didnt want to go out buy a new card and still be at square 1). Thanks for the help guys, and is there any good video card you would recommend?