Red Vertical lines on 9700 display

Evening guys, I've got a weird problem with my graphics card, an ATI Radeon
9700 pro.

I recently did a clean install 'cos it'd been a while and I restored from a
working image and updated my graphics card drivers to the latest Omegas.
Everything seemed fine for a couple of weeks then I started getting weird
red or cyan vertical lines running down my screen (see pics)
http://www.geocities.com/jazzking69uk/gfx/004.jpg

Weird, I thought... I restarted and they went away but after about 5mins I
went to a website and the came back.
So I went back to a prevous version of the Omegas which I know worked but I
still had the same problem and even I noticed that when I restarted that
something fraky was going on during POST and the windows xp load screen
(http://www.geocities.com/jazzking69uk/gfx/005.jpg dunno how clear that will
be as I'm typing on the dodgy screen now!)

Anyway, so I guess it's something h/ware related rather than driver related
but what? I've read it might be something about a dodgy 3.3v rail on the
PSU, but my monitor gives the following report which doesn't seem too bad:

Field Value
Sensor Properties
Sensor Type Winbond W83697HF (ISA 290h)
Motherboard Name ASRock K7S8X / K7S8XE / K7VM2 / K7VM4 / K7VT4-4X

Temperatures
Motherboard 33 °C (91 °F)
CPU 43 °C (109 °F)
Maxtor 6Y120P0 38 °C (100 °F)
Maxtor 6Y080L0 26 °C (79 °F)

Cooling Fans
CPU 3668 RPM

Voltage Values
CPU Core 1.63 V
+3.3 V 3.31 V
+5 V 4.87 V
+12 V 12.35 V
+5 V Standby 4.97 V

I have to say though, it's only a Q-Tec PSU, (650W, yeah right,,,) but it's
been OK for the past few months so why would it suddenly freak out on me
now?!
I'm running an 2800+ with 512Mb and the two hard drived you see listed
above. Nothing too power hungry!

If anyone's got any other suggestions as to what I can do to fix the problem
I'd be very happy to hear them.

The gfx card is a refurb from a supplier in the UK, but only offers a 30 day
RTB warrantee, don't know if can get anything from ATI/Hercules because of
it....

I look forward to hearing your ideas!

Thanks for reading,
Alex

"~Alex~" wrote in message
...
Evening guys, I've got a weird problem with my graphics card, an ATI
Radeon 9700 pro.

I recently did a clean install 'cos it'd been a while and I restored from
a working image and updated my graphics card drivers to the latest
Omegas. Everything seemed fine for a couple of weeks then I started
getting weird red or cyan vertical lines running down my screen (see pics)
http://www.geocities.com/jazzking69uk/gfx/004.jpg

I would suspect a bad memory module on the card. Other than replacing caps,
you can't really refurb a video card. And most places who sell "refurbished"
video just see that they post and then sell them. So it's likely you wound
up with someone's dud.

"~Alex~" wrote in message ...
Evening guys, I've got a weird problem with my graphics card, an ATI Radeon
9700 pro.

I recently did a clean install 'cos it'd been a while and I restored from a
working image and updated my graphics card drivers to the latest Omegas.
Everything seemed fine for a couple of weeks then I started getting weird
red or cyan vertical lines running down my screen (see pics)
http://www.geocities.com/jazzking69uk/gfx/004.jpg

I've read many reports of 9700 Pro's eventually going bad
from overheating. Apparently the heat spreader on the back
of the card doesn't make proper (or in some cases any)
contact on most cards. It's either a design defect or
manufacturing/QA problem.

"Rick" wrote in message
ink.net...
"~Alex~" wrote in message
...
Evening guys, I've got a weird problem with my graphics card, an ATI
Radeon
9700 pro.

I recently did a clean install 'cos it'd been a while and I restored from
a
working image and updated my graphics card drivers to the latest Omegas.
Everything seemed fine for a couple of weeks then I started getting weird
red or cyan vertical lines running down my screen (see pics)
http://www.geocities.com/jazzking69uk/gfx/004.jpg

I've read many reports of 9700 Pro's eventually going bad
from overheating. Apparently the heat spreader on the back
of the card doesn't make proper (or in some cases any)
contact on most cards. It's either a design defect or
manufacturing/QA problem.


Thanks for the replies... thought I'd fixed it today when I directed an
extra fan at the card but I restarted and within 2 mins it was back
again....

Looks like I'll be after a new card (again) soon....

~~A~~