My computer = 1 GB RAM P4 2.66GhZ Lots of hard drive space Radeon 9800 Pro Graphics Card (with latest drivers) Windows XP Pro Ok, two pics. Here is the first one: Here's the second one: What the heck is wrong with my screen?
Radeon 9800? how old is that. I suggest you upgrade to a better graphics card. Looks like the problem is with your graphics card or your monitor. Prolly your vid card though.
It's not the monitor, that wouldn't get recorded in a screen shot. I'm betting the video card, and maybe some heat issues. When was the last time you cleaned out your computer of dust, including getting the dust out of your cpu's and gpu's heatsinks?
For it to be out of game like that, I'd sooner blame his frame buffer/VRAM being shot...but grab rivatuner 2.06 from guru3d and run the temp monitor to be sure...if while on the desktop it says anything higher than 55C, you're overheating. If the temps are 50C or below, buy a new card...or make use of your current card's warranty.
Usually this happens after playing a steam game, if I'm just browsing the web, nothing bad really happens. When it does happen it sometimes fixes itself after a little bit... but usually not. Everything was fine until about a week ago and for the 2-3 years prior I've never had a problem like this. Yes, yes, and yes actually. I don't think im overheating... only because i cleaned out the dust from my computer recently, and I also tried leaving the side panel off to be sure. Alright I'll give that a try and report back. My card is way past warranty by now unfortunately.
I can't help too much because I woulda thought it was an overheat problem, but with regards to the 9800 Radeon Pro, I just upgraded to an X1950 Pro from a still fully functional 9800 that i'd had for 3 years, so it's not because it's old. If you want to keep a close eye on your gfx card fan + temp, I suggest grabbing ATITool (had to use it to ascertain whether my psu, or the graphics fan was the reason my machine kept tapping out...turns out it was the psu ). It gives control over fan speeds through temp ranges so you'll definately be able to see...with the case side off, looks not tho :/ It actually looks like an image has been burnt on to your monitor...have you had extensive running with screensaver off? Easiest test is just to switch with another monitor if you have one, and just run it for a bit. I wouldn't rule out other things like improper refresh rates and incorrect monitor drivers if you really get stuck. It's not likely, but these things happen
Me being the idiot myself had just realized the stupidity of my post. It would be his monitor because hes the one taking the screen shot, so we are not viewing his monitor. Its a heat/graphics related issue.
I was going make a reply about this saying "LCDs don't suffer burn in" then realized that there's a larger flaw: He screenshotted it. You cannot screenshot a monitor problem.
The problem is the video card, no doubt about that. From your first sentence I would have said it was a heat problem, web browsing doesn't really stress your card much, while playing games like empires will. My guess is either the video card fan getting old or something slowing down the fan. Besides that leaving the side panel off doesn't really affect the heat much.
His saying that it usually does not fix itself precludes heat from being the answer afaik. If he is at the point where he is seeing distortion on the screen from heat, the problem will manifest itself a bit differently. Could it be permanent damage as done due to heat? Possibly, but I do not think it is due to heat at this point in time. Again, verify temps. I said use rivatuner because it can display temps in game as an overlay, I think.
Side panel off doesn't matter, if the fan isn't going around fast enough the computer will overheat, I got exactly the same artifacts when I played source games back when I had a radeon 9800 pro which are notorious for having their fans break. Heat problems usually stay until the video-card gets reset, on my card the problem stuck then the gfx card overheated so much it reset and fixed the problem for 5mins or so.
Alright. I got rivatuner, but i have no idea how to config it for displaying temps. Does anyone have a tool that can do that for me with quick tutorial on how to enable it? I will also take a look at my fans and just make sure that they are not clogged or something. thanks btw guys
Ah ok thank you very much- but i have news! I Opened my pc, took out my graphics card, cleaned the dust out of the fan and put it back in. It spins just as fine as it did prior BUT... I noticed that one of the fans in my powersupply has died! One of the three to be exact. I took the powersupply out and opened it up, cleaned the TONS of dust inside it out, took out the fan, cleaned it out and put it back in. Unfortunately, the fan still does not work. It seems I am going to have to find a replacement fan for my powersupply. That may prove tricky. But yea, do you think the failed fan in my powersupply is causing my graphics card to go on the fritz?
See if you can get something like Everest tools, MB Monitor or similar that can monitor your PSU voltages - that, or see if you have a multimeter/voltmeter around that you can use you can test voltage levels with that. Generally, you are supposed to be within 5% of your rated voltages - so for example if your 12 Volt line is running at 11.85 volts, you /should/ be OK. If you go this route, to measure the 12V line, put the positive lead of your meter on the yellow line, ground goes to black. To measure the 5V line, use the red wire: http://www.keunited.com/rampant/temps/DSC00985.JPG http://www.keunited.com/rampant/temps/DSC00986.JPG In my two pictures, you can see that my PC Power & Cooling PSU is almost dead on its proper voltages (which is what you can expect from a PC P&C power supply) but yours may differ. You said your PSU has 3 fans? It /shouldn't/ have an issue, unless it is a cheapy PSU. For example, my power supply is stress tested up to around 65C (~150 F) and can withstand a lot of stress. Most lesser power supplies are only tested at 20C (which is lower than your room will be even if you have A/C running!) but even so, one of three fans being dead shouldn't cripple you. Also, a bad power issue manifests in a slightly different way, usually, such as when you try to switch from 2D mode to high power 3D mode, you may see a hang. In all my years, I've see some bad PSUs, but they have never resulted in a distorted screen like this, but there's always a first?
I had that problem aswell when I had a 9800 pro. It WAS a heat-related issue. Whenever I put a ventilator in front of my computer to cool the graphics card it almost always just ran fine. But that didn´t permanently fixed it... only got fixed when I bought a new gfx-card.
