As of yesterday these multiple green lines going vertically accross the screen would appear in the startup of my pc and would not let me get into the desktop without it not being in safemode

It started after restart from a crash i had in the game 'sins of a solar empire'

I've removed the game, formatted the HD but to no avail. I'm pretty certain its a motherboard issues as even with no HD's connected the green lines still appear.

Any help on this would realy be appreciated

System spec:
AMD Dual Core 3.2Ghz
4Gb OCR Reaper RAM
74Gb + 150Gb Raptors HD 160Gb WD Caviar
MSI K9A2 Platinum Motherboard
Nvidia 7950GX2
Enermax 535W

If you have a spare gpu or can borrow one, try another one. Is it crt or lcd?

Nah i don't have any spare, though i could try booting without one, if that would work at all. The monitor's LCD, and ive tried switching monitors to an crt but the result's the same.

The OS is Vista Business btw, trying to install XP to see if that actually gets anywhere

Another thing to note is that the text in BIOS and in the XP installation has lines going through it at random places

E.G: P|le|as|e| W|ai|t|...

Well XP Pro works, got that installed and working.

The lines are still there though

try using ur vedio card in another PC if u dont hav a spare. it could also be dur to the fact that ur VGA cable has a problem...... when u tried ur CTR, did u use the same cable or different one.

I'm faily sure its a graphic card problem, but i can't test it on my other pc as its too old and doesnt have a PCIE slot.

Ive used a DVI to DVI cable for my LCD and the vga cable connected to the CRT monitor so a seperate cable for each monitor.

When installing the nvidia driver on the XP installation it makes the screen go blank and wont go back to the desktop and wont let me boot up to the desktop after restarts.

I was going to buy a 4780 soon anyway but I'd like to determine whether or not id need a new motherboard as well (hopefully not )

If the text or graphics are screwed up ALL the time, your video ram may be corrupt due to overclocking/overheating/modding, etc. However, I would bet your MSI PCI-E slot is shorter than typical. If the card isn't fully inserted, it may cause problems. Try another PCI-E slot & power cable.

Oooohh, thanks akhilles I'll try that one now. Though I don't have another power cable for the gpu....I don't think anyway. Will look through the cabling