ok, i am very new at this so please bare with mi ignorance

At boot up, myscreen misses characters, after is running it  displays 4 vertical lines across the monitor and are about an inch wide, they flick and CHANGE colors.
Some pixels on the left of the screen also change color.
the problem bleeds all the way to status bar and the tray.

I ran Mcafee, webroot & spysweeper and nothing.
I switched monitors and the problem persisted.

Is my VIDEO card out?
I have XP pro, all-in-one-wonder 9800 series ATI video card  , 1 gig ram, 160 g hard drive.

Thanks for the help.



Sounds like a video card problem to me. Try taking your video card out blow the dust off put it back in and see if the same thing happens.. Also use another card if you can to make sure.I KNOW this may sound stupid but it really helped when I used to repair video games. Tap the side of your monitor a couple of TIMES. If it fixes and goes back instantly you could have a cold solder joint or a loose capacitor. Just offering a suggestion if the card swap doesn't work.Does this happen while in the bios and safe mode.And are you overclocking anything in that system?I switched monitors and same thing happen.
Frankie, it does it even when reading the OS.
GX1, the system was FINE for almost 2 years with no significant changes.
I'm borrowing a video card from a friend to check it out.

Thank you ALL for your time and suggestions.