spade111

Heya KnifeMissile,

I've seen the same thing when moving to a new card. Sometimes the component level circuitry that converts the image from a digital source to an analog feed for your monitor can induce these sorts of defects. Typically at the maximum refresh rates per resolution that a given DAC can support, distortion characteristics such as the 'waves' you pointed out, are common. Although in this case, I doubt that the ramdac is at it's ceiling. The ati website lists the x300se as having a dual 400mhz... which would max out at somewhere well above, depending on depth - 2048x1536x85hz.

I suspect that other components on the card, as a value part, chips on the card may not be of top manufacturing spec... (less shielding, more transistor crosstalk etc.), may be more susceptible to interferance, and contribute to the production of this wave effect. The fact that it shows up only at certain resolutions and refresh rates, reinforces this analogy.

Solutions - try running the card at a non-standard resolution. Get powerstrip an muss around with the timings ( note : do this only if you feel comfortable... this can seriously damage your card/ and or monitor ) and resolution modes / color depths. Tweaking just a little in one direction or another may help reduce or eliminate the effect. Compound resonance is a fickle beast.

ev