About 3 weeks ago I started having problems with video games. The problem is they all freeze up on me. Either the screen will freeze, or the monitor will go crazy with various colours and then it'll freeze. I have no idea about source of the problem. I tried re-installing my OS, upgrading to all the latest drivers, etc....ending all processes before playing, but nothing helps. I have an: ati 9800 pro 128 ecs miro-atx m925 MOBO with celeron 2.6 250 power supply 40gb HD+120gb HD (ata of course) 1gb-1x512 elixir-1x512-corsair RAM Creative labs audigy 2 value Lite-on DVD I turned paging off I tried everythign I can think of. I even tried disabling my 2nd HD, and DVD drive thinking it was a power issue. I also played around with the ati control panel, going from best performance to best quality video. Does anyone have any ideas? Is it possible I somehow damaged my video card when I touched it to whipe off some dust? Or is the MOBO damaged somehow? I always put on my grounding strap when I open up the case and I never wear a wool sweater. I'd appreciate any help, thanks!!

It sounds like you have sufficiently deduced and excluded the problem to be the video card. It's probably past warranty, so I think it's time to look for a newer and much more powerful card than the 9800 Pro.

Yup !!!!! Sounds to me like a corrupted video ram on the actual board itself, unfortunately that is something you can't fix. My sig is on sabbatical.

get a 6600gt or ultra and get a different processor if you won't really good gameplay, like a AMD Athlon 3200+. Hp Pavillion a1010n Intel Celeron 2.93 GHz 160 Gb Hard Drive 512 pc3200 Mb of Ram 64 Mb Graphics Chip Windows Xp Home Edition

Thanks guys for the advice. It's too bad...I didn't realize how vulnerable the video card is. Do you think I damged it when I dusted the top?

I get this too with every game i play specs AMD Athlon XP 2400+ 2x 1gb DDR 400Mhz Samsung 200GB HDD XP Pro nVidia 6200 256mb