ati 9800

[titojackson]

Hi all,

I've recently been experiencing some short pauses in game activity, about 5-10 seconds long. They started abruptly and the pausing became more and more frequent. I then started having corrupted game files which I repeatedly reinstalled/repaired etc. The problem persisted and finally my PC started crashing after logging into XP.

I opened up the case and it seemed like I had 2 problems: the cpu fan seemed slower than normal, and there was a LOT of dust on everything. So I replaced the cpu fan (it was really close to dead), and cleaned off the dust, and now I'm able to boot into XP with no trouble. However whenever I load up World of Warcraft I get strange geometric shapes flickering on the screen. This lasts for a few seconds and then the game will crash. Sometimes I can load the game further than others.

2D effects are completely fine as the system runs stable for all other uses. However trying to load any 3D game results in a crash.

The games I tried are WoW, and Warcraft III. I ran the DirectX diagnostic-->no errors if that helps. I also tried running WoW in openGL mode with no luck.

I'm fairly certain my graphics card is the issue, though I'm not sure if it's a fixable problem.

Is it possible the progressive overheating....killed a part of the card but not others? Like just the 3D portion? or a certain part of RAM? Is there any way to repair?

I think I'm stuck replacing the card with a cheapie but I'd like to get some opinions first. Thanks for all your help.

AIW 9800 PRO
Asus K78NX mobo
AMD XP 3200
No overclocking.

<<don't really know the specs off the top of my head, but can find out if it's important.>>

 

[Murissokah]

Well, it seems to me your VRAM is bad. Since memory is accessed randomly, errors will also occur randomly. If you haven't changed anything in your PC, haven't OC'd anything, then there isn't much to do about the VGA. Just make sure the VGA coolers/Heatsinks are sitting well connected to the VGA and working correctly.
Good news is you won't need to spend much to change your card since it isn't exactly new. Bad news is it is AGP, which is more expensive and has less options. You can buy up to a Radeon 3850, though that would be a little too much for your pc.