basically, my X800XL like I GUESS overheated too many times (my monitor would turn off sometimes when playing games n I would have to restart n recently it was doing it a lot) yesterday my card STARTED to show lines n stuff when I turn the computer on, on the bios SCREEN n the windows screen so it was really bad (lines all over the place, so horrible) I would turn my computer on n my monitor would just turn off now not even in a game so I just turned it off n haven't touched it anymore (don't want to mess up anything else) what I want to know is if I should buy a new graphics card or does this kind of damage mess up my pci-e slot; like if I buy a new pci-e card will it be showing all them bad lines n stuff everywhere again with the new card? I even get two of those white little dots on my desktop background that arn't supposed to be there (forgot what they are called). so yeah should I buy a new graphics card ? ; it scares me because I don't want to buy a new one and then that one starts to over heat too. I have 1 tiny fan on my mother board that doesn't work and one fan that was on the side of my case that I took off cuz it broke too. I was going to buy a little fan or 2 and put it on the back and the side of my computer to keep it cool, but it was too late and my card finally ran out of strength and got permanantly damaged..

I was looking at graphics cards on new egg.com and they arn't all that expensive I could easily get one better than the X800xl that I have but I don't wanna do it without knowing that it is going to work well. I got a 400 watt power supply n I know all these new cards are really powerful. If I do get a new card though i'll get the fans running around my computer to help keep it cool this time that's for sure.. what do you guys think?
oh and my specs are :
amd 3200+ 2.0ghz 2gb ram windows xp pro SP2 soundblaster live 24bit and the done for pci-e x800xl 256mb
400 watt power supply my mother board is A8N-SLI Deluxe NVIDIA Nforce 4
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Articles/Sources/Asus_A8N-SLI_Deluxe/Images/photos/3mobo.jpg theres a pic of it the little fan next to the ram slots that says asus on it is the broken fan
thanks for advice
This does seem like a graphics card problem.
You shouldn't have a hard time FINDING a graphics card that your CPU is powerful enough to push for a low price.
As for the South-Bridge.. if a fan is broken, there's a good chance that what it was cooling is damaged or worse.I was thinking of getting this card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150228 or maybe the 512mb version since it's like 40$ more but probably the 256.

So if I did buy this and replaced that damaged card it should run fine again you think?

it would suck if I buy it n all goes well again but the card I buy is slower than my x800xl No, that's a bad choice.

Either the 8600 GT for 110$, the X1950 Pro for 130$, the X1950XT for 200$ or the 8800 GTS 320 for 270$.the most I can go is like 200 so yeah the 8800 is out of the limit.. but thanks for help now I gotta see which one I should pick from your recommendationsThat's an easy one, the X1950 Pro. It's about twice as powerful as your old card.ok well heres the search results for x1950's http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000048+4017+1069609641&Description=X1950PRO&name=PCI+Express+x16

theres so many of the same thing just different core clocks from what I can see does it make a big differance?

i'm thinking this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161061
it's a pretty good price for 512mb, and doesn't look huge like some other ones there what do you think or should I get the 256 version of thathttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102061alright cool man thanks a lot for your help it's CHEAP too so if anything i'll be able to buy a case fan or a better power supply if I need it =) but i'm goin to get a fan to put in the back of my computer for sureAlright, enjoy.

Come back if you need anything.