Artifacts on screen

[wingfan1991]

got an issue with an older PC.. it has an ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB card and a 420W Thermaltake PSU. it's roughly 8 years old this setup.. all of a sudden it's showing green/red artifacts on the screen. so I cleaned out the whole system of dust (using compressed air etc..) and took out the Radeon reseated it, even plugged new 4 PIN connector into the Radeon etc.. worked fine for 2 more hrs or so with games (HL2, Painkiller, NFS MW etc..).

now question without me buying the parts and returning them.. and get charged re-stocking fees for opening packages.. what is the issue PSU or video card? can someone be 100% sure its one or the other?

 

[L1qu1d]

Well you did what I would've suggested, and you reseated it which is good. It could be PSU or Video card. But most likely its the video card.

I had the same problem with my 9800 XT, but all I had to do was alt tab out of the game and back in and the artifacts would go away...mostly in half life. Though i think the problem in your case is either overclocking, or overheating....but it could just as well be one of those enjoy the last bit with your card before it dies

do you have the program called ati tool?

 

[wingfan1991]

the system has been overclocked for 8 years.. and its run all these games like butter forever. i just had reformatted the computer and installed everything fresh. the ATI drivers im using are 7.4 (older ones) which I find have always worked great on my system.

i dont have ATI Tool .. at least i dont think. the card itself is not overlocked. only the CPU (running at 2.0GHz .. it's an AMD 1800XP single core).

so you think the card over the PSU?

 

[L1qu1d]

I would say there is a really good chance that the card has played (or is playing) its last games. I mean my X800 XL would do that, until I could only put with dos....soon after nothing

 

[wingfan1991]

ok and what do you think is a good "upgrade" or same level (nothing lower) then the 9800 PRO 128MB AGP .. to play these games like the Readon did.

2 cards that seem to be under $80 CDN .. are X1650 Radeon 512MB or the Radeon HD2600 PRO 512MB.. both seem to have higher clock and memory speeds and both have 3.0 sharder model .. i assume both would be an upgrade to the 9800 PRO right? and should have no issues running on the Thermaltake 420W PSU?

 

[L1qu1d]

I would say something to give you justice for the 80$ would be the 2600 pro. But I'm really not as familiar with these cards. I skipped both when upgrading

I would do a quick search on google. I would think they are good, they should be better than the 9800 pro, but double check

 

[wingfan1991]

cool thanks.. ya i put a 2600 pro in a system i built a while ago and it was solid.

 

[L1qu1d]

K glad I could help