Help! Visual artifacts whenever I play games

[imported_jediknight]

Even games that aren't graphically intensive (or, at least, I wouldn't think they'd be) - such as the new Penny Arcade game. The artifacts appear a minute or two after starting gaming.

What would be the cause of this? Drivers? The video card? Other hardware? Overheating (not caused by malfunctioning video card)? Something else?

The video card is an ATI X800XL 256MB AIW AGP (yeah, I know it's getting old.. but I just need it to hold together until I can do a Nehalem build early next year..)

 

[Greenman]

My guess would be the video card overheating.

 

[JasonandBecky]

I have had that happen from three things in my years of messing around.
1) Overheating card
2) RAM on the card going/gone bad
3) AGP/PCI bus out of whack

 

[imported_jediknight]

How do I find out what the problem is? Do I need to RMA the card?

 

[ajaidevsingh]

I also had such a problem with 9800 GX2 but that was due to lack of power from the psu!!!

 

[JasonandBecky]

I would at the minimum call their tech support.

 

[imported_jediknight]

Originally posted by: ajaidevsingh
I also had such a problem with 9800 GX2 but that was due to lack of power from the psu!!!

400W (ActivePFC PSU) ought to be enough for:
Athlon 64 S754
2x optical drive
3x internal hard drive
Radeon X800
2x 80mm fan
1x floppy drive (why do I still have one of these?)

 

[vhx]

As long as it's a decent power supply... or its efficiency hasn't dropped over time. Which is entirely possible.