Monitor/Gfx card problems-Help!

[cwright]

http://homepage.mac.com/cwright3/screen.jpg

The photo in that link speaks for itself. Earlier today this light blue pattern of video artifacts started appearing on the display, and I can't figure out how to fix it!

By default it won't be a very dense pattern (such as the iTunes window in the photo), but if you drag windows around on the screen, the pattern will grow more dense until you can't see that window at all (such as the window on the left side of the screen).

I've checked that the graphics card (ATI x800xt) is seated firmly in the computer's AGP slot, and tried rebooting the computer several times. Then I opened up a screenshot on another computer and the pattern was gone–so does that mean the display is the problem and not the computer?

I was traveling with the computer last week, but had no problems with it during that week. And it's been set up and working for the past 3 days here with no problem until now, so I can't say that the trip had anything to do with this problem.

Does anyone know of a solution?
Thanks!

 

[Makosuke]

I had a problem that looked PRECICELY like that with a 9800 Pro in a G5 last year, and it was a bad card. Replacement under AppleCare cleared up the issue. In my case the artifacts actually appeared in screen caps, because I guess the capture routine just pulls data off of the card's buffer, which was corrupt. Surprised me at first--I didn't know it worked that way.

The only thing I can suggest trying is pulling the card, going over the leads with an eraser to clean them, and reseating it. If that doesn't fix it, it's probably bad. (Could be the slot/motherboard, too, but you'd need another card to test that.)

 

[cwright]

Thanks for the reply (sorry I didn't get back here earlier... forgot about this thread!).

Looks like the video card was dying. I had purchased it separately from the computer, so I just sent it back to ati for repair/replacement.