okay, so about 7 months ago my video games would stop running 2 or 3 minutes into the game. i have a radeon 9800 pro. shortly after that in the properties and hardware tab, it showed that my multimedia video controller and multimedia video where missing. so i tried everything, installing new drivers and messing around with my BIOS and everything i could think of. I'm not very computer technical, but i tried what i could. so finally i just gave up and reinstalled all of windows, and now they are no longer missing from the hardware tab, but the video games still shut off 2 minutes into the game. also, when i watch dvds on my computer blue and red vertical lines run through the screen. i have read other online forums and there are a lot of the same problems going on with this card, and with the 9700 pro. if anyone has any ideas please help.

heres what i have, and remember im not very computer technical so when you answer please explain how to do things in steps. thanks.

windows XP professional
service pack 2
directX 9.0c
AMD Athlon 64, 1800 MHz (9 x 200) 2800+
Asus K8N-E Deluxe motherboard (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)
Motherboard Chipset nVIDIA nForce3 250Gb, AMD Hammer
BIOS Type AMI (11/26/04)
RADEON 9800 PRO (128 MB)
NVIDIA nForce3 250 Parallel ATA Controller (v2.6)
SCSI/RAID Controller Silicon Image SiI 3114 SATARaid Controller

LOL, I missed the part about 'Linux' .. What's the problem?
Seriously though, at first glance it sounds like you have correctly diagnosed a flakey video card.
I suggest following along with advice on the ATI website/forum and/or a Windows forum. Not sure what sort of 'things or steps' we could suggest you do to that Windows installation to try to fix the problem. Perhaps try another video card? Anyhow, contact ATI first, if you haven't, and this is a 'known issue' with the card.

i was just hoping that i would be eventually wrong and that there would be some magical way of fixing these things. well any ideas on whats a good card for me to get next?

That's a matter of opinion, really, and also on what your needs are.
Everyone has their favourite video card manufacturer. Mine is nVidia. Personally I don't care for ATI products. However, this doesn't mean ATI sucks, so if they have a card you like, that meets your needs and budget, by all means get it, if you have no problems with ATI.
Conversely, maybe you'll see an nVidia card that you like.
Anyway, don't accept mine as the last word on whether or not your current card is shot -- I'd get a few more opinions on that too. But it doesn't sound good.
You might try making sure the card is getting enough cooling, before replacing it. It might be overheating. Remove the covers from the machine, make sure the fans are clean and working, especially the videocard fan if it has one. Make sure adequate air is circulating.
If that doesn't work, and it's still screwed up, get a few more opinions, but I say it's getting flakey.

i had a couple of other people tell me the same things you are telling me, in the end they tell me to get another one so i think that just buying a new card will be the best thing. i will do that cleaning thing you suggested, for it is time to have it cleaned out again. i dont have any problems with ATI or nVidia at all. all i really need is a video card that will support any extensive video game for the computer like my 9800 pro did for the longest time before pretty much flaking out on me. money is always an issue, but if you have any suggestions on what a good nVidia card would be it would be very helpful while im looking into them. right now im looking at 7800GT, or x1650xt.

I use a rather 'older' nVidia GeForce4 MX440 8x, and until it looks like it's gonna conk out on me, I really don't follow the new product reviews too much. I am very pleased with my card though, and will be 100% sure to replace it with another nVidia unit when the time comes.
Surely Gooooogle, as well as the nVidia customer forums (nvnews.com I think) and website www.nvidia.com will give you a good idea what's out there. Also, check out the online PC tech magazines for reviews and performance capabilities. I'd bet most any medium-to-high end card will blow you away, but would expect great performance from a lower end nvidia card as well. These days, low-end ones are pretty darned impressive. Sorry I can't really suggest a particular model to you; I would be only guessing. But I have read of loads of PC users going for the 7800 and/or SLI models.

hey thanks for your help. i will look in to it.

No problem -- best of success with that and let me/us know what you end up getting, if you get a new card, and how you end up liking it.