Unusual artifacting.

I thought my relatively new 3870 was going bad, and I posted in another forum, someone said it might just be Vista as I was only getting artifacts in Vista and not during a post. And it would sometime work and sometimes not. Various BSOD's would talk of Page faults or IRQL's, Memory management, and even NFTS. I will try to check my Memory with Memtest 86+ and if that passes I might try a new had drive. I already am using a X1800 XT so I have a reasonable expectation it is not the Video card. I hate doing a new install....

MSI K9A2 Platinum, 4 Gig (2 X 2) AData PC6400, MSI HD 3870, Sata DVD drive, floppy, IDE Seagate 500 Gig HDD, Vista 64 Ultimate. No other add-in cards.

You're not entirely clear as to exactly what the problem is, but I'm assuming you have an issue with your graphics card displaying artefacts on screen? Does this happen always, or only when doing specific tasks, such as playing games? More importantly, you mention this is happening with your new 3870. Try downloading and installing the latest drivers. If that still produces errors, then a different graphics card to see if the problem persists.

The symptoms you describe could be the result of bad video memory, or the graphics card over-heating. The problem is with graphics, so swapping out or testing memory, is not it, neither is the hard disk. You may have a problem with the motherboard, in that the communication betwen it and the graphics card is not working correctly (MSI is not the best of the breed, and is mostly used by questionable OEMs that are trying to save a quick buck). If you move your graphics card to another computer entirely, does it also exhibit these symptoms you describe?

Another point to bear in mind is if you are overclocking your graphics card. GPUs, like CPUs, can be overclocked to make them run at a higher than intended frequency, but some can be overclocked by upto 25% (or even more) whereas others refuse to run correctly even when overclocked by just 1%. Personally, I run my machine at the recommended clock frequency settings. It could be, as Peter says, a simple matter of your graphics card overheating, especially if you are overclocking.
Dwarf

It gives horizontal lines of garbage, unreadable screen, unable to even select restart. It only does it once in Vista or immediately when boot is complete to Vista. Chrystal clear during post and initial boot process. Not in gaming. I had the latest 8.3 Cats on for several days before the artifacting. The card has a factory overclock, but I have not overclocked anything it. I have used this card since January when I installed Ultimate. Same problem with my X1800 XT.

Seeing at this problem occurs with two different graphics cards, so now have only two options left to check:

1. Try another screen that you know is working. If the problem persists, then try the next step:
2. Install either of your graphics cards into another computer that does not exibit these symptoms. If the problem does not recur, then you need to look at your motherboard.

I have been on the road, but I am currently testing with Memtest 86+ and with 70% of the first pass done it has 3,262, 637 errors so far... I will make the full pass so I can capture the total errors and then try one stick at a time.

I will Buy some Spare Ram tomorrow.

In the first post there was quite alot of different faults.
This can be down to (hardware wise), fault power, faulty ram, faulty gfx, faulty HD, faulty mobo or faulty CPU.

Software wise there are so many different types of fault to pin it down to a specific thing.

Try going into Run - CMD then type in sfc
This will confirm that your system files are not corrupt.

If your sys files are OK then run chkdsk.

You have already run memtest.

Go to the darkside for a bit and try running a linux distro which runs straight from CD or DVD. If the distro works then that will narrow down what is wrong.

Try downloading some diagnostics software that can be burnt to CD and booted from the CD.

How old is your system, did you buy it from a shop?
Let us know how it goes.

I let Memtest 86+ (V2.01) complete a full pass with both of the modules in (3,229,696 errors) and then removed one module. By happenstance it appears that I removed the Correct (Bad) one. I ran another full pass with the remaining module and received "0" errors. I then moved the "Good" module to the slot previously occupied by the "Bad" module and then ran another full Pass with "0" errors so it seems I have confirmed a bad stick of Ram and that the motherboard Ram slots are okay.

(Not entirely true though as I have yet to check two "Good" Sticks together so I have not eliminated the CPU's Memory controller as a Culprit) I will have to get another set of RAM to do that.

I did let it boot using the X 1800XT and that went okay, I will put the 3870 back in and give it a go

I built the system (eighteenth build) about 4 months ago. Typically you have a few simple problems, so while I have seen some problems I certainly haven't had all that much experience. I'm always surprised when something breaks

Repeat the memory test with the other stick of RAM (the one that you are assuming is faulty). It is possible that you have had a poor electrical contact between that stick and its socket on the motherboard, and that by removing and reinserting it you might solve your problem. Make sure that the memory module sits squarely in the socket.
Dwarf

I am sure that is what the Ram folks will ask me to do before RMA'ing it anyway so I will.