Video card dying ?

[grasshopperbe]

I think my aopen Gf4 ti4200 is dying. I have several graphic problems since a few days , but it's not real easy to explain properly.
For instance, when i play video , my screen regulary turns black for a second and sometimes when i move the mouse it just "appears" here and there on the screen.
When i click "start", the menu comes up all wrong or just parts of it, and i also get "blackouts" for a second each time . While rebooting i noticed several wrong characters in the black background during the "dos" part of bootup. I am pretty sure i even saw a "7" in the blue background while in BIOS.

The system's specs are : abit nf7-s 1.x, athlon 2200+, 512 mb apacer ddr 333, aopen gf4 ti4200 128mb 8x, maxtor 60 & 80 Gb HD's, a LiteOn dvdrw drive and a LiteOn cdrw drive, enermax 350w, win 2K pro

I have put in a new HD and installed win2k on it to rule out software problems, but the problems remain. A few hours ago i replaced the videocard with an old gf2mx200,and all seems to be OK now. I played some small video files and everything went normal .I am going to play some video or a dvd on it for an hour or two to test.

Does anyone know what might be wrong with the Gf 4, and if all these problems can be caused by it?
If i need a new videocard these are the options in my price range in the local shop

CLUB 3D GeForce 5900 XT ( AGP ) 128 Mb € 172,78
CLUB 3D GeForce 6600 GT ( AGP ) 128 Mb € 209,42
A-OPEN GeForce 5950 XT ( AGP ) 128 Mb € 204,42
CLUB 3D Radeon 9600 XT ( AGP ) 128 Mb € 138,22
CLUB 3D Radeon 9600 XT ( AGP ) 256 Mb. € 156,01
CLUB 3D Radeon 9800 PRO ( AGP ) 128 Mb. € 208,38
SAPPHIRE Radeon 9600 XT ( AGP ) 128 Mb. € 140
SAPPHIRE Radeon 9600 XT ( AGP ) 256 Mb. € 147,3
SAPPHIRE Radeon 9800 PRO ( AGP ) 128 Mb. € 206,12

Out of all these, what would be the best choice? about 200 bucks is really the max i want to spend on it, i hardly play games, but i dont want a card that's worse than the old one. Is there really enough improvement between the 9600XT and the 9800 pro for instance to make it worth the extra 65 € ?

[glc]

Yeah, sounds like the ram has gone south on your card.

SAPPHIRE Radeon 9600 XT ( AGP ) 256 Mb. € 147,3

Even that is overkill if you don't game.

[grasshopperbe]

Thank you for the help Glc, i am going to order a new card tomorrow morning.

The only game i've had in the last year or so is Rome : Total war, and this hasn't even been on longer that 2-3 hours all together. I even don't have it installed anymore. I know it is pretty resource intensive, but it ran fine on my system as it was. I just didn't have the time to play it
But i do want to keep my pc capable of playing games if something really good might come along in the future (like gta san andreas on pc maybe, or black & white 2)

[fedz]

If you game, the 6600GT will play the latest and greatest with all the eyecandy on, for a reasonable price. Its performance is nearly 2x that of the 9600XT, so consider carefully.

fedz

[grasshopperbe]

The only 6600 GT is from Club3D, i do not know this brand at all. Is it reliable ?
I'd go for the sapphire because i know this is supposed to be a very reliable brand. If the club3d 6600gt is a good card i might go for it.

thank for the help.

[glc]

It should be okay - I think that Nvidia is requiring tighter quality control now than they used to.

[grasshopperbe]

I just visited the club3D website, and i checked some specs of the cards

The Club3d 6600gt :
Interface 128 BIT
GDDR3
GPU 500 MHz
Memory 450 MHz
Ramdac 400MHz
OpenGL 1.5
DirectX 9.0
PixelPipelines 8

Club3d 9800 pro :
Memory 128MB
Type DDR
Interface 256BIT
GPU 380 MHz
Memory 340 MHz
Ramdac 400MHz
OpenGL 2.0
DirectX 9
PixelPipelines 8

Club3d Radeon 9600XT 256MB
Memory 256MB
Type DDR
Interface 128BIT
GPU 500 MHz
Memory 300 MHz
DVI Yes
TV-Out Yes
Video-in No
Ramdac 400MHz
OpenGL 1.5
DirectX 9
PixelPipelines 4

these are the specs i could find for the sapphire 9600XT 265mb. Does anyone
know the full specs for this card?
Memory 256
Memory 330MHz
OpenGL 2.0
DirectX 9
pipelines 4

I think i can narrow the choice between the 6600gt and the sapphire 9600XT 265, depending on how much i am willing to spend. I think i am going to sleep over it for a night.