Graphics Problem

[ta2]

I have been having several problems with my graphics card for several weeks now:

EVE-Online: White/grey rectangles appearing at completely random places on screen, and sticking there (for example of a rectangle appears on my ship and rotate the camera, the rectangle moves with the ship). Game was freezing up for about 10 seconds at a time also (though I wouldn't be surprised if this particular issue was NOT graphics related).

Rome: Total War: Neverending lines going vertically up or along the ground (lines appear to be a texture from somewhere in the game, stretched to infinity)

Black & White 2: Similar lines to in Rome:TW link, TOTALLY screwed up one time after I switched back to it after alt-tabbing link. Working fine a few seconds later link, and then the lines again link (they move with the creature).

The issues with Rome and EVE I have had for weeks now, then I had these issues with Black & White 2. I formatted my computer earlier today, and then tried it again and the screenshots above are from that.

I am using (and was using before formatting) the latest drivers from the NVIDIA website (169.21). My graphics card temperature is not high imo (45 C). Also, while under stress testing using the nTune utility from nVidia, the entire screen went completely black for a few seconds multiple times (black as in no-signal, not as in the colour black - easy to tell the difference on an LCD, however the monitor didn't come up "no signal" which I would have expected it to).

Oh and finally when booting I get these random coloured spots in random places (bigger than 1 pixel, more like 4x4), and some of the characters in places are purple instead of the colour they are supposed to be. Oh and also when installing Windows in the DOS-stage where there is a blue blackground, a small chunk (say 10x20 pixels) was a black square instead of blue.

Sounds like the graphics card is screwed eh? But I just thought I'd check here incase anyone knows otherwise. Could it possibly be the PCIe power cable going to the graphics card, or maybe the motherboard?

[Pob255]

Need to know a bit more about your specs (which card, PSU, other bits)
The "long lines" are caused by missplaced vertices, each polygon is made up of 3 vertices (points in 3d space) and a triangle is drawn from them (the polygon)
What is happening is that the 3d cordinates of one of the vertices is being screwed up (decimal point often get moved) so instead of x=10.0 it's x=1000.0 so the ploygon looks like a line.

The cause can be a few things, most common are:
Driver problems
Overheating
gpu or graphics card memory failier
Overclocking the card

Actually I think it may be one of the memory chips on the card causeing the problems esp if you're getting problems in DOS/BIOS/post
(I memtioned the PSU in the specs because unstable power loads can cause problems/damage to the card)

[ta2]

PSU: Zalman 500W
Card: XFX 7900 GT (factory OCed)

The card has a zalman silencing kit on it (copper heatsink, ramsinks), and the case has 2x120mm, 1x250mm and 2x80mm fans in it so its definately not overheating.

I tried an old set of drivers which I know work properly and I have the same problem. I tried changing the power input from the built-in PCIe "1" rail to the secondary PCIe "2" rail on the PSU (modular PSU). I also removed the card and sprayed it with compressed air to completely remove any dust from it.

I have also tried swapping out the card for an 8400GS which I have in my other computer, and everything works perfectly - no coloured dots, no artifacts or anything.

I guess its the memory or GPU as you said then? I just need to be 100% sure that it's screwed before I go and buy another card.

strange black rectangles on grass
colours inverted in places, but not in others... wtf?

[Blitzen]

If you are getting problems when only in windows it can be many many things.

Oh and finally when booting I get these random coloured spots in random places (bigger than 1 pixel, more like 4x4), and some of the characters in places are purple instead of the colour they are supposed to be. Oh and also when installing Windows in the DOS-stage where there is a blue blackground, a small chunk (say 10x20 pixels) was a black square instead of blue.

If you are getting these issues during boot/post, aswell as in windows, the graphics card is effed and its time to invest in a new one.

When in post/bios and this is happening, 99/100 its knackered memory chips.

Unfortunately, from what you have siad, the card is definitely dead/dying. Sorry!

[ta2]

The coloured dots are only when booting, they disappear when the windows GUI loads.