Is this a video card problem?

[cominginsecond]

For the last couple weeks or so, I have been having lots of video glitches whenever I've been recording. My waves plugs appear as a bunch of numbers and random text, my colors in my DAW (Ntrack) go skrewy, making it virtually unusable. This just developed, and the only change I have made recently is adding a couple new, fairly nice hard drives.

I can't help but think this is a problem with my five-year old video card. All you computer gurus out there, am I right? If not, do you have any suggestions on what might be causing these crazy display problems?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me on this issue.

 

[lucid]

do you have another video card, maybe borrow a friend's... then switch em and see if it works. could be the PSU too, the extra HDDs could have sent it over the limit, causing the video card to be deprived of vital juice. your system specs would help a lot!

 

[RWhite]

If your video card is really 5 years old, you are long overdue for a new one. There are several inexpensive ( <$100) video cards out there.

 

[cominginsecond]

your system specs would help a lot!

You're right. Sorry about that.

Athlon XP 1600+
256 MB DDRAM
Delta 44
300w power supply
Plextor 12X CD burner
I know my motherboard would help you guys out a lot, but I don't remember which one it is. (I'm at work right now.)
Western Digital 20 gig hard drive
Western Digital 60 gig hard drive
S3 Virge GX video card

 

[RWhite]

I'll just say this - the S3 Virge used to be known as the "Video Decelerator"

 

[cominginsecond]

Well, maybe that's it. I sure hope so, because it would be a painless fix to my problem. I'm going to order a ATI Xpert 2000 PRO 32MB 4X AGP video card from newegg as soon as I get home. Thanks, RWhite.

I'm still open to any other ideas anyone might have about this problem.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

I would not go with that ATI card. I have had several problems (mostly driver related) with that whole series. In fact I'm on one right now in a P4 1.5Ghz WinXP machine...I get annoying lags in simple web animations and its overall windows performance is anything but quick. Using the latest drivers too (big bloated suckoids). Of course your mileage may vary.

I would recommend something with an entry level nVidia chipset. Something like a little 16-32MB TNT2 Vanta card would be just right for a DAW, and only cost $20-30.

Slackmaster 2000