   Weird Video Problem
  So, for the past week, my computer's display has been intermittently screwing up.  And by screwing up, I mean that it starts looking like this:It seems to be happening more and more often, which has concerned me.  I reinstalled my video card drivers a few days ago, and it seemed to stop for a day, but then resumed (so maybe it was just luck).At first I figured it was a hardware problem, but seeing as how it shows up in a screenshot, it probably isn't (or is this a bad assumption?).Anyways, if any of you have any ideas how to fix this (I've reinstalled my video drivers, as I said before, and I've also tried turning down hardware acceleration in the Troubleshooting tab of display properties, to no effect.), PLEASE HELP OMG (having to buy a new video card would be [sad]).I'm running a Sapphire Radeon 9800 Atlantis 256mb, on Windows 2000.  I'm using the most up to date drivers available, and DirectX 9.0c.  If you need any more hardware information, just ask.OMG SAVE MEH OMGOMG   
  I would say your gfx card is broken :(Do you have the possibility to replace it with another one? It's hard to say what's wrong, so I would try to replace all your PC piece by piece to find the problem.   ;Quote:Original post by Ludi83I would say your gfx card is broken :(Do you have the possibility to replace it with another one? It's hard to say what's wrong, so I would try to replace all your PC piece by piece to find the problem.:(Yeah, I have a spare video card lying around, just not a very good one.  So it's possible for it to be a hardware problem, and yet still show up in a screenshot?  Admittdly, that seems odd to me.   ;  it looks like video ram corruption. whta would cause that on your system i can't say without having more info.   ;Quote:Original post by Jarrod1937it looks like video ram corruption. whta would cause that on your system i can't say without having more info.Hmm.  Well, even if you don't know what's causing it, this still helps a lot.  Are you implying it's some program I'm running which could be doing this?  I don't mind giving more info at all, I'm just not sure what info I can give which would be relevant.Anyways, thanks for the suggestion.  I will poke around, see if I can find out anything about what might be causing it.edit: also, is there any sort of program that's like memtest but for video RAM?   ;Quote:Original post by BosskQuote:Original post by Jarrod1937it looks like video ram corruption. whta would cause that on your system i can't say without having more info.Hmm.  Well, even if you don't know what's causing it, this still helps a lot.  Are you implying it's some program I'm running which could be doing this?  I don't mind giving more info at all, I'm just not sure what info I can give which would be relevant.Anyways, thanks for the suggestion.  I will poke around, see if I can find out anything about what might be causing it.edit: also, is there any sort of program that's like memtest but for video RAM?if there is video ram corruption then it is usually hardware related unless you're overlcoking it yourself. causes of this are,1. too much voltage going to vid ram2. not enough volts going to vid ram3. overheating vid ram4. bad timings set for vid ram (vid ram does have timings)5. something else that interfaces with the vid ram is bad6. or the vid ram is badhowever it could also be the gpu not processing anythign correctly therefore corrupting what is in the vid ram...the best thing to do is to test it out with a different card, and if it doesn't do it then you may have tio replace the other card... sorry.however like i said it could also be the gpu, and the 9800's are known for thier overheatign problems (i actually had my 9800 pro heatsink fan melt off...). try taking off the side of your pc and placing a large fan by the side and see if it does it still.;Quote:Original post by Jarrod1937the best thing to do is to test it out with a different card, and if it doesn't do it then you may have tio replace the other card... sorry.however like i said it could also be the gpu, and the 9800's are known for thier overheatign problems (i actually had my 9800 pro heatsink fan melt off...). try taking off the side of your pc and placing a large fan by the side and see if it does it still.I'll try the fan thing, and then a different card if that doesn't help.Thanks for the help :)   ;  Huh, wow.I had a 9800 Pro too, and I had no clue this was a problem. I thought I just got unlucky.My fan died. Randomly killed a bearing or something. I'd keep getting yellow vertical bands which would go away after a reboot. Eventually it got really bad, I checked, and my fan wasn't spinning. Removing the card revealed the fan was not only totally busted, the sticker on it was blackened.I think it still works, but I got an X800 instead. :) Much better.   ;  too me, it looks like it's serverly screwed up, and it's an hardware problem, not software / drivers. Check out the fans, check out the temps. You should have a utility coming with the video card, to check the temperature range, and that will either underclock the card, beep in panic, or cut out the video card if the temps go wild. If it's not a temperature problem, then you may have a busted ram on your card, and that's pretty much bye bye.I also noticed my old Radeon giving me screens like that after a warm reboot, but not really a cause for concern in that case. If you also have a friend who is willing to take the risk and testdrive your video card with an spare computer, that can help putting the blame on it.   ;Quote:Original post by oliiitoo me, it looks like it's serverly screwed up, and it's an hardware problem, not software / drivers. Check out the fans, check out the temps. You should have a utility coming with the video card, to check the temperature range, and that will either underclock the card, beep in panic, or cut out the video card if the temps go wild. If it's not a temperature problem, then you may have a busted ram on your card, and that's pretty much bye bye.I also noticed my old Radeon giving me screens like that after a warm reboot, but not really a cause for concern in that case. If you also have a friend who is willing to take the risk and testdrive your video card with an spare computer, that can help putting the blame on it.well, the 9***'s cards don't havce temp sensors so he can't really check his temps, nor is there any option to beep, declock, or shutdown if the card gets too hot....