Stuck Pixels - Monitor or GFX card?

Hi!
A few months ago I gave my old PC to a friend as I was upgrading and he wanted a PC. Everything worked fine except the monitor had several "clusters" of red dots on various parts of the screen. I guessed those were stuck pixels, and I assumed the monitor was nearing it's last legs. Still he was happy to take it. Oddly enough after I gave it to him and set it up, the red pixels disappeared and the monitor functioned fine for a few months. Recently they came back so he decided to buy a new monitor. After he plugged it in, it worked fine except the same red clusters were there...does this mean the monitor is ok and it is a graphics card issue? Not really sure what to do or what to tell him. I feel bad as he just shelled out for a new screen! Any info/help much appreciated! Thanks in advance

 

its ether the GFX Card or the SVGA/DVI Cable.

 

Cool, thanks for that. Brand new monitor and new cables - problem persists with both SVGA cable and DVI cables - so I guess that narrrows it down to the GFX card. I know this may sound like a stupid or complete noob question but, any ideas why the GFX card causes that problem? i.e just old/worn out, taken a knock, clash with another piece of hardware etc. And I'm guessing you can't repair it, just get another card? My friend isn't into games so downgrading to a cheap card should be fine right? (currently has a GeForce 6800 - old nowadays I know!)

 

a number of things could cause artifacts on screen, heat build up, static on the contacts.

before you go throwing it out, blow out dust on or around the fan, you can also clean the contacts with a qtip dabbed an alcohol.

 

Thanks for the ideas guys. The videocard is in a separate slot and it has 2 sticks of RAM so I'll reseat them after trying out the eraser trick. Fingers crossed!