Hi, I am very new to Linux. Last week my graphics on my computer began to act up. When ever i scroll down web pages everything becomes blurry and distorted. However, when I close the window and then reopen it the graphics are clear. This began happening on XP, so I thought maybe it was an XP problem as I had updated the graphic card drivers to no effect. For this reason I downloaded LInux. However, this did not fix the problem. I would like to stay with linux though because of various other problems i have had with XP. anyways my question is do you guys think this is a graphic card issue? should i get a new one? i know it is not the monitor because i have tried using a different one and the same things happen. I have screen shots for you guys to look at if you think that would help. what happens is that there are red coloured lines across the screen and around on screen graphics. If you think I need a new card could you give me some recommendations? my computer is 5 years old so i don't want to spend much money as I am planning on building a new one this summer (so under $100 canadian). Thank you.

what i currently have...
ATI Radeon 9200
ASUS A7V8X-X mobo

If the problem exists in both XP and Linux and the monitor is OK, then there's a fair chance that your graphics adapter is indeed broken. So if you want to be sure it would be best to try another one (perhaps borrow one from a friend?).
If you do get a new one, I would recommend one with an NVIDIA chipset. At least that is if you want 3D support. NVIDIA has pretty good linux drivers for those cards. They aren't open source, but are free of charge (the drivers that is).

As broxtor stated, since you eliminated the monitor as a possibility and demonstrated that the problem exists in both Windows and Linux (since they use different drivers), I agree that the video card (or the PCI slot it is in) is your #1 suspect. If you need a new card, the HD 4670 is reasonably high performance and relatively low cost. It may be slightly higher than your budget, but it would be somewhat better for the future. Although it is an ATI card, the ATI Linux drivers are better now than they have been in the past, so it is worth considering. The NVIDIA cards in that price range are not as competitive--unfortunately.

Sounds like a framing issue. Over-clocking hacks are not usually recommended. Seems the GPU is out of cycle with the VRAM. And, it's correcting by framing absolute areas.

Don't ever scratch the rims of your CD/DVD's either, as this ruins them. But, some do...use a diamond dusted file...

Thanks for the replies guys. I am going to try to borrow a card and see if that fixes anything. Cloud9...I am not really sure what you mean by your post or how I would go about trying to fix that issue. Could you explain? Thanks