Multi-colored dots that dance around my display: video card troubles

THE Ted

So ok, I'm quite sad. My brand new VisionTek Radeon HD 2600XT AGP card is wigging out. I've put my old card in and tested out any possibility of the problem being the monitor, cable, or cable adapter. There are these blue green and red dots that litter my entire display, and like to mesh together when I scroll around. They appear within both the bios loading screens and windows. When the screen is mostly black they like to dance around in little square-like sections.

I plan to begin the whole tech support nightmare of returning it sometime this week, but what really sucks is that this video card was the last real hope for my AGP motherboard. Hopefully its just a defective individual card, or its something old and commonly troubleshooted that someone can tell me about here. If I scroll up and down the dots like to turn into vertical lines of confetti that mock me incessantly.

What I'm really hoping for is some re-assurance that this is a problem that happens to many a model and brand of video card, and that I should just feel unlucky that I have to get this one replaced, and NOT that I need to give up on the 2600XT, because I really don't want to buy a new motherboard with PCI-E but I need a video card that will work with the gigantic plasma tv I plan to buy.

Thanks for any kind words.

Technicality

The same thing happened to my x800 before it finally died after 4 years of service, though it was white dots rather than coloured. I'd say theres a slim chance it could be a power issue, but its by far the most likely you got a dodgy gfx card, and getting a replacement will make it all better.