[njRimassa]

Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3
ViewSonic flat screen Monitor
Raedon 9800 Pro

Yesterday morning, I turned on my machine to see colored lines stretching horizontally across the monitor screen. This same problem happened two or three months ago and seemed to be solved by reinstalling the monitor driver. So I went to Viewsonic, located the driver, downloaded it and installed it over the existing driver. This did not help.

Windows help suggested removing the display adapter which I did. Restarted the machine, no change.

I switched monitors (old CRT, Trinitron). Problem remained.

Electricity went off. Weather related although I thought at first that I'd fried the the machine.

Switched monitors again. Display problem manifested differently on separate monitors, but essentially the same.

During the time that the machine is on, the problem grows. The monitor will have only a few lines of color and ghost images, but as the mouse is the interference grows to eventually cover the entire screen. A forced refresh will clear various windows by 50%, but continued use will again activate complete color banding.

Over the past 24 hours, the screen has displayed rectangular checkerboard patterns, diagonal animation of color bands and horizontal striping. Turning off the machine for 30 minutes or so will allow the startup screen to clear, but the banding always returns. The machine's computing ability seems unaffected. I am able to run virus scans, defrag, burn CDs, etc.

My question is should I seek further solutions or would reformatting the hard drive be the best option at this point.

Thanks for any help you can offer.
Nancy

[mt2002]

Do you get the same problem in safe mode as well?

If the problem started with a power outage, perhaps it my be hardware related with your PC and not driver related. If it is driver related; then it should work fine under safe mode as it uses a different driver.

[njRimassa]

The problem continued to occur in Safe Mode, in Safe Mode with Networking, in Debug Mode, in Last Known (whatever that message says) working mode.

The power outage actually occurred in the middle of my trouble-shooting and didn't seem to affect the results at all.

It might help to know that the machine's fan was working overtime yesterday, but is quiet today. I'm completely stumped.

Nancy

[Oily]

Do you have another video card you could try? It might be your video card that is dying.Is the fan on the card running,it might be over heating.

Have you tried to remove the drivers for your GPU and then reinstall them?

[njRimassa]

No, I don't have another video card, but tomorrow I will.
I didn't check for a fan on the card. I didn't know it had one, but I'll turn the machine on and look.
I have not tried to remove/reinstall GPU drivers and at this point really can't see the software interface to feel confident about clicking on anything.
Thanks for your input. I'll give the video card swap a shot.
Nancy

[njRimassa]

It was the video card. I've replaced it (surprise! it was easy) and my machine is back to running like a champ. Thanks to all who assisted.
Nancy