Strange Graphics fail

[pingofdestiny]

Earlier I was watching a movie in VLC Player when the screen went all weird -- by weird I mean little black lines appeared on the screen, they were on angles and would go away as I moved a window over them. I just installed my GTX 285 today so I probably can safely guess that its the problem. I'm wondering if its a bad GPU and needs to be RMA'ed, or if its something else.

I installed the drivers from the cd that came with the GPU, and it was working fine for about 3 hours. When it started to act up I restarted the computer, and noticed that in the BIOS screen and Express Gate screen that there was no problem. As soon as the OS Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit started, the black lines appeared again. Could this also be a PSU related issue? I have a 550W PSU, 1 HDD, GTX 285, 2x2gb ram, AMD 6000+ 3.0ghz, m3n78 pro MOBO, and dvd drive. What do you recommend?

 

[mactronix]

It does sound power related from what you have said about how its booting and when the problem kicks in. What make and model is the PSU ?

There are many PSU calculators out there but i trust and use the Corsair one http://www.corsair.com/psufinder/default.aspx
Just enter the relevant details for your System and see what it says.
If you want to post your PSU make and model and the results from the PSU finder i will be glad to offer possibly cheaper alternatives to the PSU's Corsair suggest.
Personally if you have the money then Corsair PSU's are one of the best and i would get one.
If you do want alternatives let us know where you are so we can possably link to relevant shops.

Mactronix

 

[pingofdestiny]

It does sound power related from what you have said about how its booting and when the problem kicks in. What make and model is the PSU ?

There are many PSU calculators out there but i trust and use the Corsair one http://www.corsair.com/psufinder/default.aspx
Just enter the relevant details for your System and see what it says.
If you want to post your PSU make and model and the results from the PSU finder i will be glad to offer possibly cheaper alternatives to the PSU's Corsair suggest.
Personally if you have the money then Corsair PSU's are one of the best and i would get one.
If you do want alternatives let us know where you are so we can possably link to relevant shops.

Mactronix

PSU is Ultra LS600 Lifetime Series 600W Power Supply - ATX, SATA-Ready, PCI-Express. I'll put the GPU back in and try and get a snapshot of the lines. But first I'm going to reinstall all the drivers, and update the drivers for my mobo. I'll let you guys know what happens.

 

[pingofdestiny]

Turns out it was a driver related issue. I put it in the video card again and caught the error message: "display driver nvlddmkm stoppped responding" so I went from there.