Erratic Graphic Artifacts

[Gregoshi]

I suspect I have a graphics card going bad, but thought I'd throw this out to the more experienced before spending money.

The problem is I'm getting "ghost" (transparent) artifacts from previously displayed items, be it text or graphics. They are teal and/or red in colour and cover most of the screen but are strongest in five evenly spaced vertical columns running down the screen. The problem is very inconsistent. It started about a month ago but I've gone a few days to over a week between incidents. I thought at first it happened only after the PC had been on for most of the day, but this morning it started within 30-60 minutes. Usually a reboot would clear the condition. This morning a reboot cleared it but since then it has twice come and gone on its own over the space of 5-10 minutes, which is a new twist on the problem.

Some additional information:

1) PC (Dell) & graphics card (ATI Radeon 9700) are just about five years old.

2) Right before this started happening, I opened up the case to replace a CD-ROM drive. I didn't have canned compressed air to dust out the case so I used a rubber blower bulb to clear out the dust as best I could. There was still some more stubborn dust on some of the components that I'm sure canned air could remove.

3) I've ruled out the monitor. When the artifacts are on-screen, I can bring up the monitor settings menu artifact free.

Any thoughts? Any additional information needed? Should a good dusting clear it up or am I looking at a new graphics card?

[edyzmedieval]

There has to be a slight link. The air might have moved some pinions in some parts of the computer, though highly unlikely. You might look at a new graphics card, especially when the card is a bit old. Good cards nowadays are pretty cheap (128MB sells for 50 euros), so if it happens to be the bad part, don't be too scared about it.

[Ramses II CP]

As a first line I'd crack open the case again and reseat all the cards inside. Sometimes when you open the case and it hasn't been open in a long time just the motions of pulling it open will cause a card to jiggle a little loose.

If that doesn't affect the problem you'll probably want to switch in and out your RAM just to further narrow down the problem area. Have you looked at the power requirements for the new hardware you installed? Dell PCs usually come with just exactly the right power supply, with little room for expansion.

[Gregoshi]

Thanks for the ideas. I'll start with a good dusting with compressed air and re-seating everything and see what that does. If that doesn't work then I'll look at the RAM. Ramses, is there anyway to test the RAM short of removing it and seeing what happens? Going from 1GB to 512MB of RAM doesn't sound appealing to me, especially considering the erratic nature of the problem. Just realized I misspelled "erratic" in the title. D'oh!

Have you looked at the power requirements for the new hardware you installed? Dell PCs usually come with just exactly the right power supply, with little room for expansion.

Well, the component I put in was actually the original DVD drive that came with the computer. However, you bring up a question I've had for a while now when consider a new graphics card: How do I determine the power requirements of all the components I have in my PC? I guess I have to pull the documentation of each component?

[Ramses II CP]

Heh, yeah, it can get a bit complicated figuring out total power requirements for an OEM machine, however if your system is still as manufactured then you can presume your PSU isn't too far from it's max load if it's made by Dell. Then you just have to compare your new vid card's power needs to your old one, and if it's a significant difference you probably want to step up your PSU.

I've used MemTest (http://hcidesign.com/memtest/download.html) to diagnose bad RAM in the past. It's free, it's small, and it's reliable, but if it does discover a problem you will still have to switch the individual RAM chips out one at a time to discover which of them is the problem. There are quite a few free memory tests out there, so feel free to try a different one if MemTest gives you trouble.

RAM problems are sometimes subtle, which is why MemTest and similar exist, but when you have an obvious problem like yours it can be easier and faster, sometimes, just to switch the RAM in and out. YMMV.

[caravel]

Sounds like the graphics card memory is either overclocked, overvolted or generally overheating. This generally causes the ghosting. I have seen a few cases of this In the past. In one extreme case I had actually run one game played it normally though with some artifacts then quit and fired up another game. The textures from the first game appeared mapped onto the surfaces of the second game! It was very strange.