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Mutt Joined: 03 Jan 2002 Posts: 122 Location: Netherlands

I really don't know what else to call it. Its been a little annoying before but now its really becoming a bother.

I've got a geforce 7700 video card and a nice Samsung syncmaster flatscreen running on XP with a intel dual core processor.

But whenever I play video, or view dark webpages a lot of permanently red/green/blue pixels show up. And when I scroll the pages, or move the video application they trace patterns on the app window like I'm moving a piece of paper under a pencil.

I've done a search but I have found no explanation as to the origin of this problem. Has any of you seen this before? And do you have any idea on how to fix this?

I'm not even sure wether this is a problem with the hardware or the software.

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 7:59 am Post subject:

make sure you've got the latest drivers from nvidia. if you do...

if the pixels affect anything else, then it's a memory error. the graphics ram on the vid card is probably bad. if you have another monitor or vid card, do a swap and compare. if the problem goes away, the swapped part is the problem. (I'm betting on a few bits on the graphics card are stuck - the impromptu ray tracing points to that)

I had a #9 SR9 that had a bad memory controller, it was a production issue and number 9 issued a driver update that made it useable with a little snow from time to time. I ditched that card quick for something that actually worked.

it could also be system ram. but that would probabyl only be the care if the undead pixels are random in nature. run memtest86+ and let it go a few passes to make sure.

http://www.memtest.org/

Mutt Joined: 03 Jan 2002 Posts: 122 Location: Netherlands

Thanks for the speedy reply. I don't think the pixels are random in nature. And they show up on diffrent screens.

I've made a screenshot which can be found here.

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 8:11 am Post subject:

Looks to me like your video card is going out.

Mutt Joined: 03 Jan 2002 Posts: 122 Location: Netherlands

Looks like I'm up for a new one then.

<Edit>I got a new one. The snow is gone. Thanks again for the help people!

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:54 am Post subject:

Would this help.
http://www.imagingassociates.com.au/color/tools/pixelexerciser.jspx

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:18 am Post subject:

squashman wrote:
Would this help.
http://www.imagingassociates.com.au/color/tools/pixelexerciser.jspx

If the artifacts can be caught on a screenshot, it's definitely not a monitor fault. Wink

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:43 pm Post subject:

I didn't see the artifacts in the screenshot.

If your graphics card has two outputs, try the other one. Some of the output circuitry could be dying.

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:47 pm Post subject:

JustAnEngineer wrote:
I didn't see the artifacts in the screenshot.

If your graphics card has two outputs, try the other one. Some of the output circuitry could be dying.

zoom in... it's the vertical dots that seem to be at redraw intervals of the scroll wheel.

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:53 pm Post subject:

Okay, I see them now. Yes, that looks like graphics RAM corruption, but it's not nearly as bad as I have seen on some other cards. If it shows up in the screenshot, it's not the output circuitry, it's the GPU or RAM.

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 6:47 pm Post subject:

#9 SR9 with only VGA output was the worst I've ever seen... without the driver that corrected horrendous logic errors in the GRAM controller (or maybe the GPU itself), it would shift sections of the screen around at random like as if the chip enables on the ram were faulty. you would suddenly see your mouse in 3-14 places at the same time (along with that same segment of screen). It was really bad. Text worked great though. Go fig.