My computer's been playing up over the past few days. At first, it started with graphic glitches, like the right click bar blanking out and the fields first reappearing when hovering over them. From that point on it's only gotten worse, like letters glitching and selections causing odd graphic errors. Here's some visual examples:



Now my computer has gone into a state where the graphic bugs every 10 seconds and after about 60 seconds it goes into phase 2, where the screen blackens out for about 30-45 seconds then resumes display either glitching again or frozen before blacking out again, with error messages of "No Signal".

I have narrowed down the problem "somewhat". Running a full system AVG alarmed me some virus was running in the processor memory. However, after running a system restore and reinstalling everything bit by bit, the problem returned instantaneously with my graphic card driver installation (NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS). So I am stuck with a computer that cannot use its graphic driver as a digital artist.

I can't tell if this is really a virus or an issue with my graphic card. If it's the latter, I need to purchase a new graphic card. However, if it's a virus then buying a new graphic card may be nothing but a waste of money. I could really use some advice for this problem if any of you guys have expertise in analyzing something like this.

I'm pretty sure your graphics card is broken if a system sweep and reinstall didn't fix it and it appeared after installing the graphics driver.

If it's not the drivers then the memory on the GPU is dying.

Overheated or overclocked?
Try loading default settings in Bios.

Originally Posted by Stijn

I'm pretty sure your graphics card is broken if a system sweep and reinstall didn't fix it and it appeared after installing the graphics driver.

I replaced the graphic card and now it's working like a charm. Thanks for your advice.

I was surprised by how cheap it was to replace it - then again, my previous graphic card was rather old, so finding an upgrade in a reasonable price range wasn't very difficult. :-P