the forums at degreez.net

I'm hoping someone could tell me why one's monitor screen might begin to look scrambled for a few seconds, spontaneously develop horizontal lines, etc . . .
I've thought that it might be my harddrive because I have been riding it pretty hard for a long time, usually leaving only about 5% free instead of the suggested 30%.
I've also thought that it might be my new ATI video card, which hasn't been as compatible with my computer as my previous Nvidia video card. (I'm leaning towards this because I believe my monitor troubles only began happening after I switched my video cards).
I know its not the monitor because the problem began with my previous monitor, I upgraded to a bigger, better one, and the screen problems still occur.
Is there anyone else here who's had those problems and knows why? I'd be glad to hear.

If it's happened on two different monitors with the same video card, it's got to be the video card. Definitely not the harddrive.

Are you running the latest ATI drivers? Wouldn't hurt to try that first.

Yeah, I've always been downloading the latest driver from ati.com. There are many problems the driver did fix, but the fuzzy/scrambled screen still remains.
What I'm trying to do now is lessen the strain on the video card by choosing performance over quality and see if that has any effect on how often my screen scrambles.
Also: when I'm viewing media on my computer (any media, any media player) there's a lot of green specks in the video. That's probably also caused by my video card.

(1) Triple-check for viruses. Many viruses seem to cause strange problems with video.

(2) Check your system fans and make sure the video chips aren't getting hot.

(3) check for magnetic/RF interference. I once had a customer whose monitor was fuzy and shaking; turned out to be a wall-wart (power supply transformer) that was too close. They'll generate more interference under heavier load so check even if the problem is intermittent.

(3) Get two of those clip-on RF blockers and clip one onto each end of the monitor cable. They're really meant to reduce RF coming OUT of the cable, and can reduce display sharpness, but they'll also block RF getting IN somewhat. You can take 'em off if they don't work.