Video card???

Newbie...????

Screen freezes and flicks off (not monitor power, power light stays on) then flicks back on when scrolling on net and document and even on desktop. Also freezes and flicks off during games. Sometimes it will crash and when system restarts it will say device error or hardware problem.
Cleaned out case thinking a heat problem. Formatted HDD, ran spy-sweep, spy-bot, norton utilities/antivirus, defragged HDD, disk clean-up, updated all drivers and BIOS more than a few times..also tried roll back and system restore.
Could it be the motherboard, CPU, Ram or the HDD rather than the Video card???
I don't want to take it in to computer repair shop as I would rather find the problem myself. Is there any diagonstic programs for the hardware (freeware)..Or am I screwed and have to take it in?
If I do get a video card should I get a top $$$ one with PCI express around the corner???

Thanks for the help

System: P4 1.7 GHz, 512 Ram, MSI motherboard, MSI Geforce Ti 200 256 ram Video (AGP), 80 gig HDD, Win XP home service pack 1 & 2, all new upates on all hardware and software..

 

i'm pretty positive that it's the video card. when my water cooling rig started leaking on my video card, the same exact symptoms came up. now, i'm pretty sure you don't have a watercooling setup; my point is that video cards tend to develop those symptoms. if a cpu/motherboard becomes unstable, it will kill your session, not just flick the monitor on and off. if you can, try borrowing someone else's video card to make 100% sure that it's your video card at fault and nothing else.

if it is indeed a video card issue, i would recommend you to not get the super high end, even with pci-e on the virge of takeover. a 9800 pro at the most should suffice you.

good luck with your problems, dude, and welcome to the forums.

 

OMG yea its about time to upgrade that video card, must be 5 years old, i am selling a sweet 9800 pro on ebay check it out

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5119982874

 

That card is a little high priced for me is there something for around $100 USD or $150 CAD. that you guys know of????

Thanks for your help..
BEE