RelaX

Half a year ago I traded in my 64 Mb GeForce4 MX 440 with a little aditional money for an Asus ATI Radeon 9600 SE.
The GeForce had died on me so they had to send it back and I could get a refund as long as I used that money
to buy my next videocard in the same store. A pretty sweet deal at the time.

It worked great too, I don't often game
(with an early form of RSI I shouldn't game at all, but sometimes the urge is just too great )
but when I do I like the new games and I don't need max performace, but I do want them to run smoothly.

So about a week ago I was playing C&C Generals: Zero Hour (cool game BTW)
and it ran smoothly till halfway through the game all of a sudden I got weird lines on the screen
and everything started to 'trail' and leave traces on the screen.
Eventually the game crashed and I rebooted, now all of a sudden the same thing started happening in Windows (XP)!

Now my computer can get pretty dusty so I figured that perhaps I should just clean it out and try again.
I cleaned every fan and wiped the dust and junk off everything.
I put everything back and the lines stopped! Woot! I can even play C&C again.

However the lines came back periodically and ever more frequent when the comp was on for a long time
until they were just always there.
I figured that the GPU must've gotten too hot and fried itsself
because the fan couldn't work properly with all the dust or something.
But the odd thing was that everything worked fine in Knoppix (Linux)...

So I reinstall Windows (XP Pro) and everything was good UNTIL I installed the Catalyst drivers from ATI.
Now appearantly my videocard works good with the default drivers,
but the instant I install the official drivers (the Asus or ATI drivers) I get the lines again.

I am at a loss as to what this problem is....
I am going to try the videocard in the comp of a friend soon and see if it produces the same results there
and then probably take it back, but I'd like to understand what the hell the problem is
before I have to face the salesman again.
Can anyone please help me?

Below are pics of my desktop,
the first is with the latest version of the official Catalyst drivers
and the second is with the Catalyst drivers removed
and the default XP drivers installed.
Note that a lot of the files still aren't displayed properly but the screen isn't filled with those lines any more.

__________________
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
- Nathaniel Borenstein

Dilbert1234567

hmmm i get similar things with my 9800 from time to time, but they are virticle and semetrical (stip of 10 pixels every 50 pixels or so, and my curser is all screwed up too. i just reboot and it takes care of them. if they are related, just reboot your system when it occurs and that shoudl fix it.

__________________
Donate Blood!

"Love is not finding the perfect person, but learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." -Sam Keen

bltzkriegmcanon

That looks like some major artifacting going on there. Do you perhaps have the card oc'ed? If not, I suggest getting an older version of catalyst, maybe a nice 3.7 or 3.6. If the problem stops there, then just simply get the next newest Catalyst, 3.8, then 3.9 and so on, until you have the latest version, then roll back if it causes problems.

__________________
What do you say to one last showdown?
- Ocelot, Metal Gear Solid 3

The password is "Who are the Patriots?" and "La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo." "La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo." Gotcha.
- The Colonel and Snake, Metal Gear Solid 3

Reese

This is just a guess based on something that happens to my friends computer all the time but have you tried changing your resolution to a lower setting and back to regular? It's a pain to do it every time he reboots but it's the only thing he found that works.

__________________
“It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick” - Dave Barry

RelaX

Thanks for your replies people, I really appreciated it . None of it worked though:
Rebooting never worked, it was constant.
Older versions didn't work either (some wouldn't even install properly!)
Switching from resolution to resolution helped a bit, but there is still something really wrong with the card.

I managed to test it in the comp of a friend and it did the same thing there, so I just took it back. The guy at the store seemed irritated, but then again I was too , he mumbled something about probably a memory problem and I can expect it back in 4 days to 2 weeks . Thank God the new comp arrived so I don't depend on that comp, although all my pr0n is on it though . Don't think I'll ever buy an SE version again.

__________________
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
- Nathaniel Borenstein

Dilbert1234567

do you or have you ever overclocked it?

__________________
Donate Blood!

"Love is not finding the perfect person, but learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." -Sam Keen

Asuka{eve}

Wow. I have geforce 4 mx440 too. I bought a Asus 9600xt and then a gigabyte 9600xt but I had to return because of some crazy stuff going on my computer.