First off, I have to admit to being a software person, and not a hardware person, so any information is greatly appreciated.
Yesterday I noticed that these strange vertical lines on my screen started appearing? They started appearing, either coincidentally or not, after I yanked a playstation 2 -> usb converter out of a usb port while it was turned on.
These lines are all vertical only, they stretch from the top to the bottom of the screen. They hold still, unless there is some movement on the screen, if this happens they start to flicker. These lines first appeared while Windows XP was running - I thought they were a fluke or something so I rebooted. Upon doing this, I noticed that ALL the screens that show during a reboot had some strage markins on them, sometimes vertical lines, sometimes flickering little squares. Needless to say, the vertical lines were still present when Windows XP finished booting. I tried booting up linux (my machine is dual boot) and noticed the flickering lines still pervaded.
I figured there may be something wrong with my monitor, so I vnc'ed from my mac in the other room into my PC while it was running XP. The lines STILL pervaded! So I think it would be safe to assume this was a problem with the video card. By the way, when these video lines are going crazy on the screen I cannot run any 3D games or applications. For instance, when I try to run a Direct3D screensaver it just dies and quits right away. When the lines are not there the 3D applications run perfectly. Also, when I try to record television to a mpeg2 file, those ugly lines actuall show up in the file when played back on my mac.
This is when I started to think it may be a GPU over-heating issue. So I turned the PC off for a few hours and later back on. The lines were gone! I did some work on the machine for about half an hour and, surprise, the ugly lines were back again.
Fast forward to today, I've done a lot of googling on what may or may not be going on - and also, turning the PC off and then back on no longer gets rid of the lines. I wish I could check my GPU temperature but my card is a ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro, so I could not use the 'AtiTool' application to check the temperature. Also, no utilities that came with the card are capable of telling me what the temperatue is; my guess is that there is no sensor available to do this.
Here are my system specs in case this information is pertinent:
Dell XPS System
ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro
Pentium 4 2.8 GHz running Windows XP - SP2
1GB RAM
Dell 17 in. flat screen monitor
Blah blah, there's more information about my system available but I couldn't see it making a difference.
So ... can anyone say with some certainty what the hell is going on here? I have had my entire system for 2 years now, I replaced the Radeon 9800 that came with it with the All-In-Wonder card a few weeks after I got the system. Up until now everything has been working perfectly. Maybe I should point out that my machine is on A LOT, and I use my video card as a PVR A LOT. I've recorded probably hundreds of shows and movies with the card ... would a lot of TV use eventually kill this card? I have NEVER overclocked anything on my system. It always ran at the stock settings. I always kept the drivers on the entire system up to date, including the video card.
IF this is indeed a case of overheating, is there anything I can do to fix it? Will I have to junk this video card that I spent $350 on!? Can I take it into a shop somewhere to be repaired. I just want to get back to the way things used to be at a minimum expense.
If my card is unsalvagable - could anyone recommend another video card? I need one video card that does these things:
Displays on dual monitors simotaneously
Runs todays games (Half Life 2, Doom III)
Can display television feed into a window on the desktop
Can act as a PVR, so I can record movies and shows when away and watch them later or burn them to DVD
Sorry about all the junk I crammed into this one post. I figured this would be more efficient than making several posts. If you actually read all the way though it and comprehended all its contents, thanks, seriously!
Thanks again,
Sevennine
Yesterday I noticed that these strange vertical lines on my screen started appearing? They started appearing, either coincidentally or not, after I yanked a playstation 2 -> usb converter out of a usb port while it was turned on.
These lines are all vertical only, they stretch from the top to the bottom of the screen. They hold still, unless there is some movement on the screen, if this happens they start to flicker. These lines first appeared while Windows XP was running - I thought they were a fluke or something so I rebooted. Upon doing this, I noticed that ALL the screens that show during a reboot had some strage markins on them, sometimes vertical lines, sometimes flickering little squares. Needless to say, the vertical lines were still present when Windows XP finished booting. I tried booting up linux (my machine is dual boot) and noticed the flickering lines still pervaded.
I figured there may be something wrong with my monitor, so I vnc'ed from my mac in the other room into my PC while it was running XP. The lines STILL pervaded! So I think it would be safe to assume this was a problem with the video card. By the way, when these video lines are going crazy on the screen I cannot run any 3D games or applications. For instance, when I try to run a Direct3D screensaver it just dies and quits right away. When the lines are not there the 3D applications run perfectly. Also, when I try to record television to a mpeg2 file, those ugly lines actuall show up in the file when played back on my mac.
This is when I started to think it may be a GPU over-heating issue. So I turned the PC off for a few hours and later back on. The lines were gone! I did some work on the machine for about half an hour and, surprise, the ugly lines were back again.
Fast forward to today, I've done a lot of googling on what may or may not be going on - and also, turning the PC off and then back on no longer gets rid of the lines. I wish I could check my GPU temperature but my card is a ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro, so I could not use the 'AtiTool' application to check the temperature. Also, no utilities that came with the card are capable of telling me what the temperatue is; my guess is that there is no sensor available to do this.
Here are my system specs in case this information is pertinent:
Dell XPS System
ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro
Pentium 4 2.8 GHz running Windows XP - SP2
1GB RAM
Dell 17 in. flat screen monitor
Blah blah, there's more information about my system available but I couldn't see it making a difference.
So ... can anyone say with some certainty what the hell is going on here? I have had my entire system for 2 years now, I replaced the Radeon 9800 that came with it with the All-In-Wonder card a few weeks after I got the system. Up until now everything has been working perfectly. Maybe I should point out that my machine is on A LOT, and I use my video card as a PVR A LOT. I've recorded probably hundreds of shows and movies with the card ... would a lot of TV use eventually kill this card? I have NEVER overclocked anything on my system. It always ran at the stock settings. I always kept the drivers on the entire system up to date, including the video card.
IF this is indeed a case of overheating, is there anything I can do to fix it? Will I have to junk this video card that I spent $350 on!? Can I take it into a shop somewhere to be repaired. I just want to get back to the way things used to be at a minimum expense.
If my card is unsalvagable - could anyone recommend another video card? I need one video card that does these things:
Displays on dual monitors simotaneously
Runs todays games (Half Life 2, Doom III)
Can display television feed into a window on the desktop
Can act as a PVR, so I can record movies and shows when away and watch them later or burn them to DVD
Sorry about all the junk I crammed into this one post. I figured this would be more efficient than making several posts. If you actually read all the way though it and comprehended all its contents, thanks, seriously!
Thanks again,
Sevennine
