Display problems

[themanwithapc]

As of late there seems to be something wrong with how my Windows desktop is displayed. See below:


Note: This was captured using the 'print screen' feature

I initially thought my monitor was on it's last legs so was thinking of replacing it. However, the same problems were displayed on my 26" LCD TV, which leads me to believe the problem lies somewhere deeper inside the machine itself.

My guess would have to be the graphics card, but that's just a guess. Anyone able to shed some further light on this as to what component is at fault, and more importantly what may be the fault with it? If any more info is required please do ask, I'm pretty stumped by this.

[andrewfee]

Definitely the graphics card, and almost certainly heat related. If you can add more cooling (eg if you have a fan lying around) try turning it off, letting the card cool down and then turning it back on with some extra cooling.

If it works, then there's your problem, but it's very possible that some of the memory has fried, either from overheating or being overclocked too high, in which case, you can't fix it and will need a new card.

[themanwithapc]

Definitely the graphics card, and almost certainly heat related. If you can add more cooling (eg if you have a fan lying around) try turning it off, letting the card cool down and then turning it back on with some extra cooling.

If it works, then there's your problem, but it's very possible that some of the memory has fried, either from overheating or being overclocked too high, in which case, you can't fix it and will need a new card.

Bah, I was afraid of that. I guess I'll see if I can even underclock the card and see if that fixes it, but I guess it'll be a new graphics card for me.

Thanks for the help.

[EvilBoris]

I solved a similar problem by dismantling all the heatsink/fan parts of my PC and giving them a damn good clean, it seemed they were very blocked up and wheren't helping with air flow

[themanwithapc]

Thanks both EvilBoris and andrewfee. Earlier today I took off the cover of my case and went to have a bit of a poke about. It seems I had installed a PCI capture card into the slot RIGHT next to the AGP slot (was I drunk? ) The strangest thing is I only have 2 PCI cards and about 6 PCI slots so it made no sense.

After moving the PCI card(s), I went and underclocked the card by 10Mhz for good measure and nothing since. Seems there wasn't any long term damage to the card. Again, thanks to both for your help.