Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS Random Screen Flicker

[PsychicTide]

Hey guys, I've been struggling with a recent video card issue which causes my new video card (256MB Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS) to flicker several times per hour no matter what I'm doing (flickers last about 1 second and it doesn't seem to hinder processing or game-play). I would greatly appreciate any ideas you may have on the problem.

Specs:
ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz (Zalman HS/F)
512MB GDDR3 EAH2900 XT (replacement card - Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS)
4x1GB DDR2 800
BFG Tech 550w PSU
Windows 7 x64

Background:
I have been using the EAH2900 XT for the last 2 years or so and about 1 week ago it crapped out on me. The screen became garbled and unreadable so I snagged my new card (256MB Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS) for free from a friend. The new card works decently with no slow-down in graphics rendering or performance issues, however, as I said before my screen will flicker for a second every once in a while which causes major problems in certain circumstances.

What I've done:
I've checked to make sure there is no obvious damage or debris on both my motherboard and video cards (both of them). I've uninstalled and re-installed the drivers several times to make sure it was done properly with no luck. I have 2 PCIe 2.0 x16 slots so I changed from the first slot to the second slot and then reinstalled the drivers with no luck.

If anyone has any ideas on what could be causing this issue please let me know. I'll try anything that sounds reasonable and I have a decent amount of knowledge on circuitry, software development, and the maintenance of both.

-Psychictide

[Rik from RCE]

Is looks like it could be down to a capacitor. Give all the caps on the card a very close inspection for signs of damage.

[PsychicTide]

Thanks for the quick response Rik, a very good idea. I'm sorry it took me so long to reply. After close inspection with a magnifying glass and a small flashlight, I wasn't able to find any obvious damage to any of the capacitors or ICs. I'll have another one of my associates take a look at it to see if I managed to miss anything and possibly take some measurements in power flow.

Any other ideas are greatly appreciated while I continue to look into Rik's suggestion.

-Psychictide

[lordrt]

You have a CRT monitor? If so it could be the monitor which is giving up (which happened in my case), else its definitely a capacitor in the card which could be damaged, and might thus need to replace the card itself, or you could just try move slightly the capacitors, which should remain fix to the card unless one has been overheating and got loose welding

[Rik from RCE]

Capacitors are not welded to the board, they are soldered.

[lordrt]

Capacitors are not welded to the board, they are soldered.

Oups my mistake, always confuse with these 2 :)

[saxmaster49]

Is there any artifacting going on in addition the the flickers?

[jak0b]

have you tried to switch the vga/dvi cable, or maybe tested it with another monitor.?