bad mobo maybe? what to do at this point?

[shaido7]

Hello,

I am trying to figure out whats best in my situation (specs in signature below).I have been having problems with my screen turning into a kaleidescope. When i try and game sometimes its fine other times I cant play. I took out my video card and put in a free pci express card 5200 geforce . the computer has been running fine since then havent been able to do any gaming cause this card cant handle it. my other vid card that i removed my brother says its working fine so were thinking maybe its the agp slot on my motherboard.

I don't really want to buy new parts without upgrading. I would like to know how to check my system to determine which part is bad not a 100 percent certain.

I would also like to upgrade but i cant afford to upgrade everything at once. I noticed there is at least one mobo that is socket 939 (Asus A8N-E )from asus that says its pci express and im wondering if its any good and or worth it to buy a mobo i can upgrade 1 piece at a time? I really only want to upgrade my vid card but didnt have pci express just noticed there are socket 939 mobo that i can buy with pci express and even upgrade to dual core. Do these 939 boards compare would i be getting actual pci express or is this more sales bs do these boards perform ?

 

[g-paw]

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the video drivers? Can you try a different agp card? As for upgrading, I think you're always better with the latest technology, in the case of AMD AM2 rather than 939. In addition to having the latest tech it will if anything be less expensive.

 

[shaido7]

yeah we tried another agp card the 9700 ati and my brother says he had problems with it thats why i think its the agp slot because both vid cards appear to be working properly.

 

[g-paw]

If it were me, I do a clean install of Windows as a final check to see if it's the mobo. Always possible Windows is corrupted, been known to happen