How to tell if videocard is bad? (x800xt-pe)

Well about 2 days ago, I turned on my comp, and it was at 1024/768, and then a popup came up that said something like no ati driver was found (or something like that). Then, I restarted my comp and everything was fine...for a day.

Yesterday, out of no where, my comp. kept hanging and restarting (sometimes). I just installed avast (cause symantec would only work when i'm at school) so I thought it might have something to do with avast and/or zonealarm. So I reinstalled both of those, and no I don't freeze anymore. BUT, when I go into games, my comp will ALWAYS freeze before the game even loads.

Also, one time I restarted yesterday, the bios said "No power cable connected to videocard". So I turned off my comp, and took out the OZ powercleaning cable (can't remember what it's called). I thought something in there might have got messed up when I recently installed a 250gig hd that is right next to the ati card.

Now windows runs great, but everytime I go into any game it freezes before it loads. What can I do to see if the card is shot or not? I was going to reinstall windows, but would rather not, lol.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I also put my 3200+, ram, and videocard back at STOCK to make sure it wasn't anything wrong with them.

What are your temos for the card? Maybe it just got fed up of running near boiling point.

Try cleaning out your HSF, and reapply some AS5 or some new TIM to it.

Bryan d

look for dust bunies in the psu they reduce the efficency and at start up some times there isent enought amps through or volts across the card and it will do that. bad wires (too much resistence) can do the same or a loose molex.

has your desk top ever gone pin stripe?