OT: Graphic Card problem
Ahem. It's me again with a computer problem! Last time I posted with a problem I was pleasantly suprised with some insightful answers that helped fix that problem. I'm hoping this one can be solved too!
There are actually two problems - one minor (no jokes now!) and one major. First the minor:
1) There seems to be some fungal discolouration in one corner of the monitor screen (or perhaps the anti-glare layer fixed to the monitor). Is there some easy way of removing this short of taking it to a repair service? The monitor is a Samsung 790DF if that's of any help.
2) My ASUS Radeon 9600SE is acting up. The display screen is corrupted when I enable full hardware acceleration. The boot screen is also corrupted. I can't play any 3D games because of this. Playing movies is also a pain because a row of discoloured pixels dance along the screen. However, if I disable all hardware acceleration in Windows I can watch the movies but they play jerkily.
I can play speccy games in an emulator in windowed mode but enabling full screen spoils the party.
I tried re-installing graphic drivers, installing newer drivers, installing older drivers, but nothing has worked. Note that I *had* installed newer graphic drivers some days before the problem cropped up. But I find it strange that the problem didn't show up immediately after I installed the drivers, which leads me to believe that it's not the drivers which is the problem. IAC, the older drivers should have worked but they don't.
Could it be a problem related to the motherboard BIOS problem I had earlier? I once read about malfunctioning pixel pipelines and am hoping it's not that!
Hmm... any ideas anyone? It's been only a year since I had this card and I'd hate to have to buy a new one!
Sorry for the long post but I though I should put all the cards on the table!
There are actually two problems - one minor (no jokes now!) and one major. First the minor:
1) There seems to be some fungal discolouration in one corner of the monitor screen (or perhaps the anti-glare layer fixed to the monitor). Is there some easy way of removing this short of taking it to a repair service? The monitor is a Samsung 790DF if that's of any help.
2) My ASUS Radeon 9600SE is acting up. The display screen is corrupted when I enable full hardware acceleration. The boot screen is also corrupted. I can't play any 3D games because of this. Playing movies is also a pain because a row of discoloured pixels dance along the screen. However, if I disable all hardware acceleration in Windows I can watch the movies but they play jerkily.
I can play speccy games in an emulator in windowed mode but enabling full screen spoils the party.
I tried re-installing graphic drivers, installing newer drivers, installing older drivers, but nothing has worked. Note that I *had* installed newer graphic drivers some days before the problem cropped up. But I find it strange that the problem didn't show up immediately after I installed the drivers, which leads me to believe that it's not the drivers which is the problem. IAC, the older drivers should have worked but they don't.
Could it be a problem related to the motherboard BIOS problem I had earlier? I once read about malfunctioning pixel pipelines and am hoping it's not that!
Hmm... any ideas anyone? It's been only a year since I had this card and I'd hate to have to buy a new one!
Sorry for the long post but I though I should put all the cards on the table!
Post edited by Arjun on
Comments
What do you mean by "boot screen"? Do you mean the actual screen you get when you first boot your puter? If so, drivers will not fix the problem as the graphics card is working from it's own bios until Windows fires up the drivers. If this is the case, your card is probably buggered.
Discolouration of the monitor. I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean - is it physical discolouration of the screen, or something only visible when the monitor is powered (ie, part of the picture)? If part of the picture, could the damage have been caused by a magnet? In which case, you may need to de-guass the screen.
Whilst playing games, anything that uses 3D is buggered. Odd lines and stuff. While playing movies I get odd colours on the screen.
The discolouration I mentioned is a physical one. I can see it even when the monitor is switched off. A bit dirty-muddy-water brown kinda thing.
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
The first thing you should notice at switch-on is the copyright of the graphics card bios. Mine says something like "Nvidea MX440 Gforce" or something similar - yours should say something similar before the main pre windows display gets going.
You may be VERY lucky - have you tried to see if the card is seated ok in it's slot? You may have a bad connection, caused by loose fitting or dusty contacts.
As I have said somewhere else in a different post, dodgy RAM is a nightmare to trace sometimes. Is your graphics card designed to use "shared" memory, or does it have it's own on board RAM?
If shared RAM, try a different stick of RAM. I don't know what part of RAM Windows prefers to allocate to a graphics card, but I do know that Windows likes to occupy "high RAM" itself. Not that it is relevant as to which part of RAM Windows likes to allocate - if windows isn't loaded yet, the graphics card bios should sort that out itself, using system RAM, so you shhould check system RAM.
I think you're looking at a replacement graphics card dude if none of the above works, but if you have a spare (maybe onboard?) card, try that first and if you get the same problem, it could even be your mobo, but that's unlikely.
Of course, if it is buggered, you can rest assured I will give it's silicon soul a good send off.
Maybe some cleaning fluid can cure the mucky bit on the monitor?
_________________
Cao ni - as they say in China
[ This Message was edited by: DEATH on 2005-11-04 12:08 ]
That's what I figured too but didn't wanna believe. :(
Hmm... I'll try this today when I get back home.
Gosh! Thanks. But it looks like you've already come to collect... :)
Er..that's the strange thing, I can't seem to wipe it off. It seems to be behind the monitor screen, which is rather improbable leading me to believe that there is actually an anti-glare layer in front of the real monitor screen.
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
Right, from my dealings with many graphics cards, yours overheated at some point, and now your BIOS is screwed. There are two possibilities:
1) You may be able to replace the BIOS with another one with a firmware upgrade (software is available, but since I only really deal with Nvidia cards, I can't comment on ATI's). This may solve the problem unless it's problem 2.
2) The BIOS chip is physically screwed, which basically means "bye bye graphics card".
This would easily explain why the graphics are screwed, and switching off hardware acceleration removes the glitches, as then the GPU functions are essentially bypassed.
1) Loose contacts or dirt
2) Knackered BIOS
which *may* be fixed by:
1) Cleaning contacts, replugging it in
2) Flashing BIOS or buying new card
Guess which one I'm praying is true.. :)
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
I don’t think I have the stomach for it.
--Raziel (Legend of Kain: Soul Reaver 2)
https://www.youtube.com/user/VincentTSFP
I had a very similar problem 6 years ago with a Voodoo Banshee. Everything worked OK but when I tried to run Quake II, some bright horizontal lines appeared in the middle of the screen and the game froze. I flashed the card ROM but the problem didn't disappear.
The card warranty was still valid so I went to the shop; they tested the card and said that the RAM was surely broken, these lines are typical symptoms of a video RAM failure; so they gave me a new card.
Gosh! Thanks. But it looks like you've already come to collect...
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No, actually I came to see if you would like to share a beer with me Arjun. Being in Bombay though, the joke maybe lost on you??
However, here is a mysterious thing:
Some of the DivX movies work all right - even in fullscreen!
Even more peculiarly, everything in Spin runs in fullscreen with no problems whatsoever - even though I have DirectDraw enabled.
However, Spectaculator with DirectDraw (fullscreen) gives me the graphic problems!
I don't understand this at all! If both are DirectDraw accelerated, shouldn't the behaviour be same for both?!
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
Skarpo
:)
Skarpo
:)
Yes, but see my message just above Skarpo's! I'm properly puzzled now!
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
Also, since both Spin and Spectaculator are using DirectDraw to draw on the screen, I don't think either of them is directly accessing any hardware functions. One possibility is that Spectaculator is using 3D Hardware acceleration while Spin is using 2D acceleration only via DirectDraw.
Speculating now... but if Spectaculator is using the DirectX8+, it's probably all 3d accelerated. Hence 3D transformed and hence corrupted.
Spin maybe using DirectDraw7 interface (2d acceleration) to achieve the same thing and hence no corruption.
Guess only the emulator authors can clear up this puzzle!
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
I wonder if the basic functions are mapped to a certain part of the cards' memory that is damaged, and this part of the map is also used during the use of the advanced features. A bit like the Spectrum screen - if you have only one bad memory location, it would corrupt the screen, but software (unless screen resident) would run perfectly normally.
Excellent point! ;) Sometimes the obvious is just too ... erm ... obvious (department of redundandcy department).
Skarpo
:)