Lines across screen.

[Rigger1015]

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/8800/computer6pl.png

Sometimes (more often than not) I start to get these yellow lines that go vertically across the screen. They seem to change to blue if I am looking at a dark webpage/image.

When I run games the screen at times gets completely broken up with triangles and whatnot across the terrain.

I've had my computer for about a year now without any problems. The specs are in my sig.

Any ideas?

[kevinf]

i think that is a video card issue, maybe its overheating

[doctorgonzo]

Try a different monitor to see if the problem is still there. If so, it's your (first) monitor. If not, then it's the video card. Given the fact that games aren't being rendered correctly, it's almost certainly the video card.

It could be an overheating issue, or it just could be a card going bad. Open your computer, dust off the card, make sure the fan is working if the card has one.

[Iniamyen]

Since the screenshot you included with your post shows the artifacts, it's definitely not a monitor/video card output problem. I have a similar problem on my 9800pro, and it seems to be memory corruption within the video card, because it's in screenshots as well. Mine occurs very infrequently (maybe once every 50 bootups), and is usually cured just by starting an application which uses 3D rendering, so I figure it wasn't worth returning the card. But your problem seems more serious, and might be your video card dying.

[Rigger1015]

I've had this card for less than a year :(

Anyways, I opened my computer to clean the graphics card and when I put it all back together I get a "Please designate boot device" or something like that and then it sits there.

I tried booting from my Win XP CD and when I do a repair install it goes to a Dos Prompt and asks me to choose a drive. I then tried to format my HDD and it doesn't give me a list of drives to format. About 15 secs after that it goes to a blue screen with an error message.

As far as I can tell everything is connected. Could I have fried something else?

[Jaggannath]

How did you clean the case out?? I'd say you've knocked something loose in the process of cleaning it, perhaps open the case and look inside for anything that is obviously wrong