First off, here are my computer specs:

-Chaintech VNF4 Ultra ATX NFORCE4 S939 Dual DDR PCI-E16 2XPCI-E 3PCI Sound SATA LAN Motherboard-AMD Athlon 64 3700+ Processor S939 San Diego 2.2GHZ 1MB L2 Cache 90NM Retail Bo-Fortron FSP/SPI SAGA AX450-PN 450W ATX12V 20/24PIN Power Supply W/ 120MM Fan P4 AMD Ready Retail-EVGA E-GEFORCE 7800GT PCI-E 256MB 256BIT GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV VIVO SLI Ready Video Card Retail -Corsair Value Select PC3200 1GB 2X512MB DDR400 184PIN DIMM Dual Channel
Memory Kit

In actual Windows, everything looks good fast but I get problems when running games. So far I have tried MOHAA, Call of Duty 2, FIFA 2005, and Prince of Persia 3. All those games mostly freeze at the loading screen (menu) and I also see some artifacts (those small pixels everywhere) and little bit of messed up texture. Some games (COD2) are worse than the others. The freezing happens like 5 seconds. For POP3, it doesn't happen after the actual game starts but the texture is still a little bit messed up.

I have updated my BIOS, video card drivers, and nForce 4 chipset drivers ...latest ones. I haven't done any overclocking either. Nothing seems to work. You think there's something wrong with the video card? I can't test it anywhere else because I don't have PCIex.

THanks.

It sounds like your RAM might be bad or flaky.

It is also possible your VGA card is defective.

Grab http://memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.gz

or

http://memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip

burn the ISO onto CD

boot up and let it run for a few hours. Let it run for as long as possible.

memtest86 is usually able to find memory problems right away however if your RAM is just flaky / intermittent rather than being BAD outright it may take several passes until the problem reveals itself.

Another great test you can run is booting your PC into Knoppix 4.0.2 and see if you have any graphics problems.

You can get the knoppix ISO here:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/kno [...] -23-EN.iso

good luck!

PS Knoppix 4.0.2 includes memtest86 on the bootable Live CD. You can simply type in memtest at the boot prompt. The downside is the Knoppix ISO is 700MB, while the memtest ISO is only a couple of megs and will not take very long to download.

Something is definately wrong with your system. I've got the XFX 7800 GT running with a AMD 64 3200+ (Winchester) and COD2 runs perfectly smooth at full LCD resolution (1280x1024) with 4x aa. Your system is faster so it should have no trouble with the games you mentioned.

Do you have a friend that could try your video card out in their machine?

When you say a game freezes do you mean that it locks up completely or just that it hesitates for a second and moves on?

Is your memory in the right slots for dual channel?

Can you try another video card in your machine?

I've had this problem as well.

I updated the bios for my 7800gt co and all of those problems disappeared. This problem seems to be a common problem with Evga's 7800gt cards.

To fix this, head over to this page:
Evga Drivers

Select Graphics Cards, then select bios updates. A list of several different versions of the 7800gt should show. The model number of your card should be listed somewhere on the card itself, so if you don't already know it, you will have to check. Your card should be either the 256-P2-N515 or the 256-P2-N518.

To download the most recent bios, you will need to register your card with Evga, so have the card's serial number ready, as they will ask for it.

For more detailed help, check out Evga's forum where you can find better instructions. You might be able to find the bios revision over there without having to register your card.
Evga's 7 series forum

Hope this helps.

Thanks everyone...

I tried running memtest.exe and it didn't show any problem with the RAMs. I even tried different slots and different RAMs...same problem.

I also updated the Video card BIOS and now it's worse. I can see the artifacts even in Windows now (before it just used to be games). It also freezes more frequently (every two seconds).

You think I should just return the video card? I hope my power supply is not the one causing problems because I disconnected two fans and still the same problem.