horrible graphics - need help

[mark]

I have a Dell Dimension 8300 with an ATI Radeon 9800. For a year and a half
everything worked fine. My graphics worked fine.

Just recently, however. I got graphics problems with all my games. Opengl or
Direct3d it does not discriminate.

Heres some of the graphics problems in some of the games. Keep in mind that
all these games ran fine:

Battlefield 1942: crap moves all over the walls when I move in the game, all
edges of things are aliased, and anti aliasing hardly helps. Basically with
AA off it looks unplayable, with AA on it looks horrible. Crap also shimmers
on the walls I have to be very close to a building or object for it to look
decent Also things off in the distance disappear and reappear, like you
could move backwards and forwards and an immobile object in the distance
disappears and reappears. Building grates and grates on tanks are warped
beyond belief.

http://www.nofurries.net/imghost/untitled.JPG

Doom 3: AA does not work at all, horrible texture aliasing, objects look
awful until your close up. Game looks absolutley horrible.

UT2k4: texture aliasing, building grates look warped, crap shimmers on the
walls.

Troubleshooting I have done that hasn't fixed the problem:

1. I have reformatted. This was my first time ever reformatting but I am
certain I did it successfully. Everything deleted off my harddrive and I had
to reinstall drivers. So if it was a driver issue then why didn't
reformatting fix it? Mabye I didn't do it correctly somehow.

2. Video card replacement. I thought my video card might have crapped out. A
dell technician came and replaced it.

3. Motherboard replacement. I called ATI they said it might be the
motherboard. Dell replaced the motherboard, did not help.

4. Video card Drivers. I have completely uninstalled and reinstalled all
kinds of drivers. Ive installed different ATI drivers, dell website drivers,
and even 3rd party omega drivers. I have even rolled back Directx drivers.

So from the troubleshooting Ive done. Ive come to the conclusion that either
I reformatted incorrectly somehow, or I have some other hardware issue.

If anyone here thinks they can help troubleshoot the problem please respond.

 

[JAD]

your monitor ......................your PSU
thats all thats left.
oh bad memory stick?

 

[Mac Cool]

mark:

So from the troubleshooting Ive done. Ive come to the conclusion that
either I reformatted incorrectly somehow, or I have some other
hardware issue.

I think you may have flunky memory or a failing power supply. Even though
it isn't the video card, I recommend you also post this in
alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati

 

[Tinman]

I had similar problems with my Radeon 9700 pro card. I got 2 replacements
radeon (9800 pro's), from ATI thinking it was the card itself, both
replacements did the samething. So I basically rebuilt my cpu from the
ground up replacing everything. Well guess what... I still had the same
problem on the entirely new system with the 2nd replacement card. So I wound
up buying a new radeon 9800 pro card and it worked no problems. I think ATI
has some problems recycling their referbished 9700 and 9800 pro cards. I
would guess if you put in a diff or brand new from the store video card your
problem would be solved. Even tho Dell replaced the card from you they are
still getting a referbished replacement from ATI most likely.

-Tinman

 

[Matt]

2. Video card replacement. I thought my video card might have crapped out. A
dell technician came and replaced it.

3. Motherboard replacement. I called ATI they said it might be the
motherboard. Dell replaced the motherboard, did not help.

It sounds like it was under warranty when it first went bad. It sounds
like Dell owes you a working computer system. I expect that you will
get satisfaction if you raise the issue on the support forums at the
Dell site.