[questionizer]

OK, here's the thing.

Recently, the games I have on my computer, such as Portal, Garry's Mod, Left 4 Dead, Halo 1, and Halo 2, and also Source SDK's Hammer Utility, have been acting unusual as follows:

In Garry's Mod, some maps (including gm_flatgrass, gm_construct, and gm_bigcity, if it helps) have the brightness way too high. It looks like the screen has been washed out, and the brightness looks way too high.

In Portal, the same is occurring.

In Left 4 Dead, all lights except for environmental lights (such as the lightning flashes on the rooftop of No Mercy) are out, and not even my flashlight works. It's extremely annoying, because I can't see a thing.

In Halo 1 and Halo 2, the normally bright maps have turned almost black and white, and the brightness (except for the sky, weapons, and projectiles) is off. Also, the interface and even the loading screen is messed up, with white squares where the clickable areas should be. Lastly, particles are rendered as squares, not small balls of smoke or dust.

In Source SDK, everything works fine except for the textures in the 3D view, which look too bright and washed out.

I have a Windows Vista Home Premium computer with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor, with 2 GB RAM, with an ATI Radeon HD 2400. If anybody can help me, thanks a LOT!

[BG-0]

Faulty onboard graphics would explain that... Try with a small add-on card, like these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125251 (wonderful price, free shipping, after MIR and the promo code savings, that's just golden as a value card. I wouldn't bother with the others (if you really want performance, go for something higher, but even this should make a noticeable increase in performance)), http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121259 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121302 (passive could be good for you?) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130313 (free shipping makes this affordable, but not a sensible option over the 4350, especially when you'd have to reinstall drivers. Though, if you start using Hammer (SDK for HL1 based games), this could be nice as the 3D view of Hammer (formerly known as Worldcraft, if I remember correctly), does not work properly with Ati cards)

Or if you don't want to buy anything (yet, shipping costs for motherboard RMA plus the downtime = horrible choice), you could also just RMA the motherboard. I can't really see any other reason for such erratic behaviour than faulty graphics. You might want to uninstall the Ati drivers, boot in safe mode and use Driver sweeper to rid of the remains of the drivers and download and install them again, just in to be sure.