What type of monitor do you have? What OS are you using? What monitor resolution/settings are you using?

Have you tried in safe mode?

My first guess (strictly a priori since I'm not familiar with the video card you're using), is that your older monitor can't correctly "translate" the signal your card is sending. It might be the monitor isn't compatible with the card, or the adapter you're using could be causing a spurious "blip" in the video signal. It's really pretty hard to tell without more info, and my only suggestion would be to just keep monkeying with it, try different settings, etc. If you can get hold of a newer monitor to connect to it, that might help you track down the problem. Sorry I can't be more helpful, but it's a bit of a crapshoot, without knowing more about the equipment.

see if the artifact pattern changes. If it does, chances are good that your video memory my be bad or could be the driver. Try deleting your video driver and running in VGA mode, then reinstall with the latest driver from the manufacturers web site.

...here for drivers:

http://support.amd.com/us/psearch/Pages/psearch.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.13&contentType=GPU+Download+Detail&ostype=&keywords=&items=20

I may have to break down, sell a kayak or something and upgrade. I'll keep monkeying though lol

My moniter is a Samsung SyncMaster 900p (whatever that means ) and I'm running XP Pro (32-bit).

The pattern stays the same at different screen resolutions.

Another tidbit. When I try to run an older game (World of Warcraft) it pops up a warning box stating "failed to find a suitable display device"

I'm going to try deleting all ATI/Radeon drivers, swapping to the built in video slot and reinstalling drivers from safe mode. I've reinstalled them several times but not like that.

Thanks

If you have a clean display with no artifacts in safe mode with the basic VGA driver and you clear out and reinstall the ATI driver and it comes back in normal mode, the card is bad. If it comes up OK in normal mode then you had a driver problem.

Well I couldnt beat the price.. free

I have a PCIe x16 slot for video though. I'm "shopping" for a supported card.

Kinda curious about it though. I noticed some say like PCIe x16 GEN 2.5[/]. Does that Gen part matter?