Is this a monitor or GPU syptom?

[DrJeff]

I have a new LCD monitor (on a system I'll describe below) that suddenly started ghosting whatever window is open on the desktop out to the edges of the screen. When you drag the window, for instance, you see a translucent shadow of the edge of the window stretching out in lines to the edges of the screen. Shutting down does not fix. I checked the adapter settings, they are fine. Who has seen this before?

The 19" LCD is pretty new, although cheapo, just installed late Dec. The graphics card is rel. old, a Geforce DDR card with 2 yr. old drivers, 32mb graphics ram. System is P4 3.2Ghz, 1GB ram, TV tuner card, several HDs, Graphire tablet, XP Home SP2. Stable for 4+ months since hooking up LCD w/o lines, so I was assuming the graphic card drivers are adeq. for hardware. Another symptom is that the machine has been occas. locking up or restarting during apps very recently, which points to conflicts or memory, to me, but can video card memory do this? No new SW was installed recently before problems started.

I know everyone will say scan for viruses/malware; that is in process now. I guess quickest test of graphics card would be to hook mon up to my newer A64 machine. That would rule out system mem too. If that fixes, I have to test system and graphic card memory on her machine first before deciding GPU is going belly up because too old. Yes, this is SO's computer, so life will be rough until I find solution, as hardware guy. I initially thought was cheapo LCD only 4-5 months old, still in warranty, but I'm beginning to think other hardware. I feel pretty solid about Crucial RAM. System stays on overnight way too often, also crunches video editing jobs to the stress point often.

Any help is apppreciated. Please be kind. I am fairly desperate to get it fixed.

 

[DrJeff]

Bump, anybody?

 

[Hepafleb]

lines showing up on a LCD are bad news. Screen might be going out.

 

[DrJeff]

Does "ghosting" of the window on screen out to the sides of the screen mean the same?

 

[Hepafleb]

Not sure what you meant by the last post but...

At my work we have some terrible IBM LCD's that died really fast.
Some had lines veritcally poping up randomly others however had a weird....effect(for a lack of a better word) going on.

For example you would move a window and, i guess you could call it "ghosting" , it would just mess up the screen, bad weird colors would follow it and lines that would be the entire length of the screen...everything was just really messed up.

If your problem is anything similar to this then it is probably your screen.

 

[fire400]

just get a new graphics card, they have Radeon 7000's for like 20 bucks, dude...

A Geforce DDR, and I thought that Geforce 2 Ti 32mb DDR's were outdated~ (before the Geforce 3 Ti, the Geforce 2 Ti's ruled the gaming market and so did Intel integrated graphics contollers, Voodoo's, ATI Rage cards, etc).

I highly doubt it's your monitor, if you just hooked your monitor up to your Win64 system, you'd figure that the monitor would be in good shape. Maybe update the graphics card drivers?
Because when I was running an Intel Extreme graphics on one of my system, I knew the drivers were outdated because it didn't offer a few resolutions in which made my images more crisp. I updated the drivers and the screen resolution options expanded themselves. I wasn't surprised all that much after the driver update, but it did make me happier~

 

[DrJeff]

TO HEPAFLEB:
Yes, your second paragraph is what I see. When I drag a small window down the middle of the monitor, I see a faint line pulling down the entire screen that coincides with the outline of my box, sometimes several lines trailing out to the edge of the monitor. They are stable, no popping in and out. If I stretch and resize my window, the ghost resizes to match. Wierd.

I luckily have the receipt due to rebate submission and it is well within the warranty from CUSA. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[DrJeff]

Originally posted by: fire400
just get a new graphics card, they have Radeon 7000's for like 20 bucks, dude...

A Geforce DDR, and I thought that Geforce 2 Ti 32mb DDR's were outdated~ (before the Geforce 3 Ti, the Geforce 2 Ti's ruled the gaming market and so did Intel integrated graphics contollers, Voodoo's, ATI Rage cards, etc).

I highly doubt it's your monitor, if you just hooked your monitor up to your Win64 system, you'd figure that the monitor would be in good shape. Maybe update the graphics card drivers?
Because when I was running an Intel Extreme graphics on one of my system, I knew the drivers were outdated because it didn't offer a few resolutions in which made my images more crisp. I updated the drivers and the screen resolution options expanded themselves. I wasn't surprised all that much after the driver update, but it did make me happier~

Good advice. Will a Radeon 7000 series be strong for video editing? No video gaming on this rig.

 

[Hepafleb]

I assume it is a AGP slot video card too. I highly recommend getting a better video card if possible.
Not something fancy but you can get something much better for very little money.

Video cards are very quickly becomming PCI-e only so you might want to pick up an AGP video card before they dissapear, that is unelss you are going to get a brand new system soon.

 

[pkme2]

My video card did that and died soon after. Get another as replacement.

 

[Hepafleb]

Originally posted by: DrJeff

The 19" LCD is pretty new, although cheapo, just installed late Dec. The graphics card is rel. old, a Geforce DDR card with 2 yr. old drivers, 32mb graphics ram. System is P4 3.2Ghz, 1GB ram, TV tuner card, several HDs, Graphire tablet, XP Home SP2. Stable for 4+ months since hooking up LCD w/o lines, so I was assuming the graphic card drivers are adeq. for hardware. Another symptom is that the machine has been occas. locking up or restarting during apps very recently, which points to conflicts or memory, to me, but can video card memory do this? No new SW was installed recently before problems started.

I know everyone will say scan for viruses/malware; that is in process now. I guess quickest test of graphics card would be to hook mon up to my newer A64 machine. That would rule out system mem too. If that fixes, I have to test system and graphic card memory on her machine first before deciding GPU is going belly up because too old. Yes, this is SO's computer, so life will be rough until I find solution, as hardware guy. I initially thought was cheapo LCD only 4-5 months old, still in warranty, but I'm beginning to think other hardware. I feel pretty solid about Crucial RAM. System stays on overnight way too often, also crunches video editing jobs to the stress point often.

This bolded text concerns me. Is the system actually locking up OR is the moniter so screwed up that you can't tell if it is doing anything?

The lines on the screen indicates possible problems with the screen but...
Locking up is a sign of something more serious i.e. driver conflicts, software conflicts, or worse hardware failure...

Time to start sticking peices into other computers to see if they work or not! =) can be dangerous though if they are really screwed up dont want to damage your other rig...

 

[DrJeff]

Originally posted by: Hepafleb

Originally posted by: DrJeff

Another symptom is that the machine has been occas. locking up or restarting during apps very recently, which points to conflicts or memory, to me, but can video card memory do this?

This bolded text concerns me. Is the system actually locking up OR is the moniter so screwed up that you can't tell if it is doing anything?

The lines on the screen indicates possible problems with the screen but...
Locking up is a sign of something more serious i.e. driver conflicts, software conflicts, or worse hardware failure...

Yes, it actually restarted itself last night while doing a McAfee Viruscan with nothing else going on. Just looked around and it was back up with the welcome/login screen.

 

[Hepafleb]

Originally posted by: Hepafleb

Time to start sticking peices into other computers to see if they work or not! =) can be dangerous though if they are really screwed up dont want to damage your other rig...

 

[DrJeff]

I tried swapping the monitor to another machine and it ran fine without lines. Went ahead and bought an up to date vid card, the ATI 9550 with 256mb, which fixed the lines. However, the random restart crap is driving my wife to reach for the sledge hammer.

I built this rig about 15 mo ago starting with an Antec case with Antec SL300S PSU built in. I know those are way underrated from what they will put out, but she has 3 HDs, ECS mobo, P4 3.2, 1 GB RAM, the 9550 vid card, a Leadtek TV card, 2 opticals, a floppy, a 9-in-1 card internal reader, and all of the mobo resources of a modern mobo, like modem, ethernet, AC97 sound, etc. She also uses a USB Graphire tablet, and has another external hard drive (usually off) and a Pinnacle Studio Moviebox DV (also usually off). I guess I am answering my own question of "Can this PSU handle these components?" I will run some PSU tests and post the results probably tonight, but what else could be causing the random restarts and lockups? Heat problems crossed my mind. I will find a temp monitoring utility (anyone suggest a good one?) and see how hot its getting also, after vacuuming the fans and vents. The proc. cooler was overkill on purpose at the time, but I can't recall which one I put in her machine. It is spinning, though.

Oh, yeah, the restarting seems to be program independent. It restarted this AM during a viruscan and with nothing else running.

 

[DrJeff]

Hepa:

:QI think I have found a bad PSU. Sandra usually shows the line voltages as very steady (a straight line graph vs time). But the Antec SL300S in question has a -5V that goes up and down like a roller coaster. I mean it varies from +1.38v to -5.11v. The CPU temps are all <48 and the rest of the voltages are steady. I turned the machine off until I hear further from you guys.

What's a good 450-500w PSU that won't break the bank?

 

[kmmatney]

My wifes computer started randomly rebooting for 2 months, but has been fine for the last 3 months after I replaced the power supply.

Here are some good power supplies at reasonable prices:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817153023
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817171007

and a few others...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103428
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817182011
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817182006

Assuming you get the rebate, the Thermaltake PSU is a great deal.

 

[DrJeff]

Just got home with a big ole honkin' Antec Truepower 2.0 430watt PSU. Pricey, but only thing I could locate here without having to wait for Fedex guy Mon-Tues. from Newegg. Gotta get it running ASAP since its the wife's machine.:heart: Hopefully this solves the problem of restarting. Should be interesting to compare Sandra's analysis of this PSU.

Thanks, ALL, for the help.

 

[0roo0roo]

truepower is ok. next time get a seasonic though whenu can wait for delivery silence/stability king