Visual glitch/distortion

Malfador · May 2, 2006, 08:56 PM

I have an issue that just reared its head last night after I'd changed the refresh rate in Windows for my display from 60 Hz to 75 Hz, then back again. This action seems to have triggered a glitch in one of my devices or drivers that's causing a horrible graphical distortion when I lower my resolution to 1024x768 or 800x600. The effect can best be described as a "mini-blind" effect and makes it virtually impossible to read text, as there are huge horizontal jaggies all down the screen, top to bottom. It basically looks like the display is going into or out of a dream sequence. After returning the display to a 1280x1024 resolution, the distortion disappears and everything goes back to normal. I would simply leave it at the higher resolution and ignore this issue, if one or two games I play regularly (Diablo 2's one of them) didn't require that I ran at a lower resolution (800x600 or lower).

I've called the manufacturers of my monitor, video adapter, and motherboard (in that order), and each of them said they'd never heard of this issue and simply passed the buck to the next device. Quite frustrating, as you might imagine.

Some things I've tried thus far are uninstalling and reinstalling the monitor in Device Manager, reinstalling the drivers to my video card (latest versions), and I plan to check the BIOS and update if necessary this afternoon.

I should mention that when in Safe Mode, this problem disappears. Apparently, then, this is a driver issue for sure, but which driver and what's the solution?

The applicable hardware is:

Samsung 191TPlus LCD
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB
Abit KV7 motherboard (I thought my problem might be a faulty AGP driver, but Abit claims this motherboard doesn't use one, as all control of the video is left to the video adapter in the AGP slot)

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

I've tried running Driver Cleaner Pro (latest version), but if I try running the cleaner on "ATI," I reboot to find the video drivers conflicting somehow in device manager. The problem is gone, until I reinstall the latest ATI Radeon drivers, and then it's back. Anyone have any idea?

Cube623 · May 3, 2006, 01:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malfador

I have an issue that just reared its head last night after I'd changed the refresh rate in Windows for my display from 60 Hz to 75 Hz, then back again. This action seems to have triggered a glitch in one of my devices or drivers that's causing a horrible graphical distortion when I lower my resolution to 1024x768 or 800x600. The effect can best be described as a "mini-blind" effect and makes it virtually impossible to read text, as there are huge horizontal jaggies all down the screen, top to bottom. It basically looks like the display is going into or out of a dream sequence. After returning the display to a 1280x1024 resolution, the distortion disappears and everything goes back to normal. I would simply leave it at the higher resolution and ignore this issue, if one or two games I play regularly (Diablo 2's one of them) didn't require that I ran at a lower resolution (800x600 or lower).

I've called the manufacturers of my monitor, video adapter, and motherboard (in that order), and each of them said they'd never heard of this issue and simply passed the buck to the next device. Quite frustrating, as you might imagine.

Some things I've tried thus far are uninstalling and reinstalling the monitor in Device Manager, reinstalling the drivers to my video card (latest versions), and I plan to check the BIOS and update if necessary this afternoon.

I should mention that when in Safe Mode, this problem disappears. Apparently, then, this is a driver issue for sure, but which driver and what's the solution?

The applicable hardware is:

Samsung 191TPlus LCD
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB
Abit KV7 motherboard (I thought my problem might be a faulty AGP driver, but Abit claims this motherboard doesn't use one, as all control of the video is left to the video adapter in the AGP slot)

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

I've tried running Driver Cleaner Pro (latest version), but if I try running the cleaner on "ATI," I reboot to find the video drivers conflicting somehow in device manager. The problem is gone, until I reinstall the latest ATI Radeon drivers, and then it's back. Anyone have any idea?

hmmm weird. have you got a pic or a screenshot of what this problem looks like? if this problem dissapears in safe mode then it must be a driver problem

Malfador · May 3, 2006, 10:40 AM

Oh, it's definitely a driver problem, that's for sure. I haven't made a screenshot yet, but I can try that tonight after work. I'm just curious if the distortion will remain in the shot after the resolution is corrected and restored to normal.

Basically, I'm not sure if it's the monitor driver, the video card drivers, or the MB drivers that are to blame for this... or perhaps a combo. What's possibly the most irritating thing about this whole issue is that none of the manufacturers have anything about this on their support pages and have never heard of it when I speak to their support team. Yet, I know I can't possibly be the first and only person that's come upon this problem.

Cube623 · May 3, 2006, 10:57 AM

well i have heard (but never seen as i've never owned an LCD monitor) that LCD monitors don't like it when you go out of it's native resolution but if it works in safe mode then i'd be suprised if it's that.

The things i'd say it is are
1. Video Drivers
2. Monitor drivers
I don't think it's the mobo drivers IMO but try using an earlier version of the ATI drivers just to see (try the version that came with your video card if you can)

edit: just thought of something. sometimes when i change resolutions the refresh rate automatically changes as well (example when i change rom 1280x1024 to 1024x768 my pc decides to change the refresh rate from 60hz to 75hz) check it's not the refresh rate being too high\too low

Dyre Straits · May 3, 2006, 02:42 PM

It does sound like a possible Refresh Rate problem to me as well.

What you can do to try to correct this is:

1. Go into Device Manager and REMOVE the monitor -- and any other monitors listed -- from Device Manager.

2. At the same time, REMOVE the Display Adapters listed.

3. Shutdown/Restart the computer and let Windows redetect the devices. Do NOT cancel anything once into Windows! Let the system install the native drivers for everything.

4. Once done, if things are corrected, proceed to reinstall the Video Card drivers you were using.

5. Use a Registry Cleaner to clean up leftovers. Crap Cleaner is an excellent free one. Just Google for CCleaner.

Good luck!