NEED FAST MAJOR HELP

The XP setup seems to be going fine.

ok, just reinstalled xp, but artifacting. Maybe the previous owner flashed the wrong bios to it. I'll see.

IMO this would've been a better choice:
http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=2699206

Maybe a bit more expensive but you would have had a hell of a lot more "potential" for your money. If you can get a refund i would advise to ditch the GTO and get that X850 Pro.

As for the artifacting i would try and see what speeds your card is running at using commonly available appz such as:

AtiTool

You should be @ 400/495 (990Mhz) core/Memory @ stock speed.

This is to eliminate the possibility that you may have a wrongly flashed Bios as Sugi123 mentionned.

Also make sure that your fan is working properly and that your card isn't overheating for some reason.

You did all that in DOS right? Also sometimes you have to "force" the flash for it to work...but As i said earlier did you first check if in fact it was flashed or not before attempting to reflash it? And seriously,if you just got the card I'd RMA it or try to get a refund for it...Fudging with a piece of hardware that's not working properly from the get-go is time wasted IMO, unless it was a "final" sale with no options to return it or getting a refund.

@ What speeds is the card running at right now?
And at what temps?

Have you tried with AtiTool? I posted the link earlier.. Also as I asked, are you stuck with that card or you can send it back for a refund/exchange?
Also you could visually check if the fan on the card is still working.

I'm not very familiar with Linux setups, but i wonder if Linux activates any HW accelaration on 3D cards...Also if it's recognized by Linux, can you tell if it's the correct model number/type of card that it's recognizing?

Have you tried unistalling it from the device manager in WInxp to see if it will be recognized automatically after rebooting? Because sometimes what will happen is that Winxp will try to install drivers for a device based on certain specs but in fact it will install the wrong drivers...
So my suggestion is to get this app:

Driver Cleaner Pro

Install this in WInxp, then unistall whatever Display adapter that shows up in your Device manager window, then reboot in safe mode, run Driver Cleaner to clean up everything thats related to ATI, then reboot in Normal Mode and try to install the latest Drivers from Sapphire's web site..if all fails and you still get artifacts after that I wouldn't lose anymore time trying to fix this card. Even if you still get it to run under Linux, I'm not sure that it's stressing your card enough for it to show artifacts...

You need to install your motherboard drivers first. If you are using a VIA chipset then you need the latest Hyperion drivers. A support CD should have been included with your motherboard.

Install the above drivers and then follow up with the ATI drivers.

Good luck.

Well not to be harsh but have you tried anything of what we suggested in the posts ?! Because as I pointed out it's not a solution to start and re-installing OSes time after time if the problem lies in the hardware...As I said earlier, i'm not sure that any installation of a Linux OS will stress the hardware enuff to make it croak like XP does...Also if the problem lies within the drivers, it's not the Linux drivers that are at fault since you succesfully installed and ran 2 seperate versions of Fedora Core...so unless you're willing to take steps to eliminate logically the culprit of your problem , you should not bother posting results that don't apply to resolving your problem...And if it's possible can you post a picture of the artifacting that occurs within WinXP?

Thank you 10000000 times. Ok, I got the artifacts to go away by installing the driver, but when I try to load trixxx, it says it cant activate 3D acceleration, so my problem is 1/2 solved.

Have you tried Driver cleaner has i mentionned before?

So you didnt uninstall your old card before installing your new card? Wow thats a mistake only a super-noob would make.

Sounds like the new card is trying to use the old drivers or something like that.

Go to device manager display adapters.

Does your original card or the new one appear? I would personally uninstal the old the old card if it appears then scan for hardware changes.

Reboot

New device wizard should then see the new hardware and prompt for the installation cd.

I did go into device manager, uninstalled the old default drivers, and it said installing drivers for Sapphire X800gto. After that, the monitor just blanks out. 90% this is a defective card.

Like i suggested in my first post, maybe looking at this LINK will give you a pointer as for what to consider...if you can't wait until july 17th then buy whatever you think is best for your needs....
Good luck with that.