H/W or S/W problem?

[panayotisk]

Hi all,
I have a computer that has a Radeon 9800 Pro graphics accelerator on a Gigabyte motherboard. And had WinXP. All used to work smoothly.
Then, the motherboard was burnt and I got it changed since that happened in a year from when it was bought. The new motherboard now is the same model as before.
But now the graphics are problematic: I sometimes get some blue lines on the screen, especially when using DirectX.

Could it be a H/W problem? Is there a possibility the graphics card was damaged and works problematically?

Or is it smthng to do with the graphics card driver (I use the same as before)?

I would also be interested if you could give me links to more appropriate forums to ask such questions.

Thanx,

Panayotis

[Joe Nellis]

You did not reinstall winXP? What do you mean by burnt the motherboard? It's a shame because that is a very nice graphics card, I just picked one up. It has been my experience that graphics cards usually die/get damaged for two reasons: 1. Overheating of the gpu caused by a faulty heatsinking or a dead fan, and 2. inserting/removing the card while the mobo still has power connected to it or the power on the capacitors hasn't dissipated yet (there is usually a green/gold led to indicate power on the mobo now.)

ATI has a new driver for that card on the web which may solve things, its a first step. Other than that, put the card in another machine and see if you still get the same display defects.

[Ejaz]

One of my friend had this problem with this model, he updated his drivers with the latest one and the issue was resolved. Try that and lets see what the results are.

[RoboTact]

Please describe the circumstances of that "burning"... And what kind of lines you see? Are they randomly positioned or just horizontal? Or maybe it is randomly positioned polygons (triangles) in those directX apps?

[panayotisk]

The power cable was plugged to a burnt wall socket (I did not do it!)...
So the power supplier (I do not know if this is the correct term) was burnt and the motherboard too...
I do not have a 2nd PC available at the moment to try the card there, although I'll try to find one.
The disk was formatted and WinXP (with no SP) was reinstalled after the motherboard change. I tried the latest Catalyst drivers but the situation did not change. I'll give a screenshot of how the codeguru site looks like to illustrate the problem better... Notice the vertical light blue stripes...

Thank you all for your replies

[RoboTact]

So it is even at screenshots... Driver or driver vs videocard. Did you try to reduce "graphics acceleration" at the standart dispaly settings (Desktop->Properties->Parameters->Extra...-a'm not sure the correctness of translation...)? Does the color shift occur at the fixed screen position at the fixed resolution or it is being changed from app to app? It it is fixed, it is likely a videocard problem...

[Joe Nellis]

I've seen those screen artifacts before, twice at least. That is a blown card. Either the card was overclocked, it got a power spike, or the fan died out its all the same. Partial usage but those glitches will never come out. You can fire up a DOS game maybe and check to see if it is all video modes that are screwed but that is a "burnt" card most likely. Visit your local computer swap meet. I am still using one of my blown cards geforce cards for a linux console.

[panayotisk]

I managed to try the card on another PC and it showed the same problems.
So, I guess you're right Joe. :(
Thanx everyone for helping