Graphics glitching
 

My dad uses my old PC (it was built in 2003) in the office where I work for his small business, recently the graphics have been glitching up seemingly at random.

http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/2...chyyyyyyyy.png

It can be as "clear" as that, or be in the form of a "grid" of coloured blocks layering over the screen, or it can end up looking like the coloured bars on a Commdore 64 load screen.

I opened it up a couple of weeks ago and tried clearing some of the gunk out of the graphics card, although I'm well aware it may already have cooked itself or something due to my negligence, especially since I already had to replace the fan around three years ago, and it took me a while to notice it wasn't running.

Graphics card is a Radeon 9600 btw, and I'm assuming that the issue is with that, but I can't really afford to go buying a new one until I'm fairly certain the issue is that, so does anyone think there's anything else that can be causing it?

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/5408/glitching2.png

And as if to prove a point, it did it again while I was viewing this thread.

Likely to be the graphics card, but it could be anything. The only way you can really tell is by changing parts as this could be GFX Card, faulty RAM or processor.

Try a cheap-ass card first.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/GeForce2-MX-32...item3a60bf0cc5

Actually, you sure your motherboard doesn't have on-board graphics as well as that 9600? Check for a setting on the motherboard (or a VGA port in the back of the PC away from the card) and you might be able to just take that card out and run the on-board graphiocs.

Nah, it doesn't. I've ordered that card, just got to wait for it to arrive.

Forgot to check if it has an AGP port for the graphics as that's an AGP port. It really should, 2003 it had been out a while and PCI-Express hadn't come about yet.