Squares Appear When Playing Online Games - Resolved

[HacktheHacker]

Hopefully this is the right forum. When my son plays games online after about 20 mins squares appear on the screen and the game freezes, See screenshot attached. His system is an AMD 3400 with 1 gig ram, ATI X800 vid card. He meets all specs for games. We have run diagnostic tests for heat, 3d etc and all say fine. He has had this computer 3 years and the problem started about 2 months ago but is now getting worse. Any ideas on what I could check. Thanks in advance.

[jagabo]

I bet the fan on the X800 is failing or full of dust and the graphics chip is overheating.

[HacktheHacker]

I did clean out the computer (only mildly dusty inside). The fan appeared to be working ok when I ran it but I guess it could be failing. Any way I can check this?
I missed out one thing. When the problem first started I checked inside the computer and found that the heatsink had come off the m/b because a retaining clip had broke. We had this repaired but the problem is still there. Could the m/b have been damaged?

[TJohns]

The even repeating pattern makes me think of a RAM issue on the video card (every 64K block not working??) Does the video card have a fan too? Try pressing a fingernail across the surface mount pins on the RAM chips to ensure good contact & try again.

[HacktheHacker]

Thanks TJohns, I'll try that over the weekend. The vid card does have a fan which does work. I think I will install a new vid card over the weekend and see if that fixes the problem. Do you think there could be a m/b problem because the heatsink came loose? Could any part have overheated and been damaged? Everything else works fine, no issues when playing dvds.

[RickA]

Greets,

A fellow World of Warcraft fan . Not seen an affect like that for many years and I forget what caused it. Think mine was triangles instead of squares. If I remember I will write back.

Possibly:
-Corrupt vid card drivers - try uninstalling and re-installing them. Even try a diff version.
-Maybe the vid card or ram sticks got knocked a little loose, try reseating everything - audio card too.
-Overheating possibly... you said you checked.
-Or even overclocked too far... vid card, memory, cpu?
-Dying component?

Have you tried leaving the side of the case off and the comp being easily accessable while you did a test run for this to happen again? Might help you troubleshoot if something is getting too warm, fans not working properly, etc. Good luck.

Cheers,
Rick

[HacktheHacker]

I installed a new video card and so far no more issues with squares. Hopefully this is it. Thanks to those who offered advice.