Secondhand video card recommendations?

[Xenobuzz]

Greetings, all!

 

What a bummer, man! After a fresh install of the game and getting all the mods working, my Nvidia GeForce 8800 GS is crappin' out! As soon as the game loads, I get scattered polygon flickering and flashes of blue and red lights followed by a black screen. My monitor then starts cycling between Analog and Digital, searching in vain for a signal. A hard reboot is required to restore normalcy. I tried the latest driver (280.26) but it failed to install anything and corrupted the previous drivers. After another reboot, I had to wait while Windows restored the previous ones. I tried again, this time choosing Custom install and selecting only the Graphics Driver and NVIDIA update options, which was successful but didn't fix the problem. In fact, the flickering has extended beyond games. As I type this, little flashes of blue and green and white flicker across my screen! Videos on any site in any format are now EXTREMELY prone to failure.

 

Unfortunately, my local PC shop is closed for Columbus Day, but when I swing by there on Friday, I was wondering if any of you might have suggestions on a suitable video card replacement. I'd love to be able to play on "Ultra" detail settings (I only play SP with NPC mods/followers and such, I just play the game) but before this video card failure I could only manage Medium, and even that setting resulted in some frame drops. Right now, I just want to replace a worn out piece of equipment with something that will at least be a suitable replacement if not an improvement!

 

Here are my current specs:

 

Asus IPIBL-LA motherboard w/2 Gigs RAM

HP Pavilion Intel Core Duo E6750 2.66 Ghz 2.76 Ghz (ACPI x86 based PC)

HP P/N 5188-2859 power supply (350 watt, +12V1 18A, +12V2 18A, no 6-pin connectors)

HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GSA-H60L disc drive

NVidia GeForce 8400 GS video card - "It's dead, Jim!"

SyncMaster 2494SW Digital widescreen monitor

32-bit Windows Vista SP2 operating system

 

I have an ATI Radeon R4870 1GB DDR5 HDMI output Direct X 10.1 graphics card with a 9cm fan which was a very generous gift from a good friend. However, I don't have the cash to invest in a whole new case ATM, and this monster would definitely require at least a new power supply. I would really appreciate any feedback/suggestions you would have on something that I could buy secondhand that would fill the void until I can save for a new system!

 

Dave S.