Graphics Card Problems
 

I've had my graphics card (Radeon 9600) for a couple of years, and never had any problems before a few months ago. Now, sometimes I'll be surfing the web, and all of a sudden my screen goes black. Sometimes the screen comes back on and all the icons refresh, and sometimes the screen stays black. The monitor is still receiving a signal even when it's black.

Sometimes when the screen refreshes, my mouse cursor comes back as a square box instead of a pointer. Also, sometimes I click on a weblink and I hear a system beep and a few seconds later, the graphics crash.

I'm assuming this is a problem with my graphics card, but I'm not sure what to do. When this started happening a few months ago, I updated to the latest drivers, and until last night, everything was working fine. Now, it seems to crash every few minutes. I don't have much open at the time (IE and Trillian, usually). Any ideas?

Try the card on another system or try another card in your system. The outcome of that should say enough.

I don't have another computer to try the card in, and I'm not crazy about buying a new card unless I'm certain that's the problem. Could it be a memory issue, or some sort of spyware, or could the card be overheating somehow? Stupid question, I'm sure, but I'm not much of a computer person.

It's almost certainly a fault with the graphics card, although we would only know for sure once you do what Grawl suggests. Start saving up, buddy! :(

I never said new card, I just said another card.

Besides, for $24, you can buy yourself a 'test'-card. That shouldn't hurt too much.