I think that my video ram is corrupted. Often in firefox I have squares of random pixels which appear only when hardware acceleration is enabled. They look like this: When scrolling them out of the screen and returning to the same spot they disappear. Sometimes it also happens in the window of other programs, buth only very often, and then it's a rectangular. I've only seen a rectangular once but I think (as far as my feeling is correct) that the surface is the same size as the squares (I mean the same ammount of pixels is broken). 1 weird thing, today I tried RescueFox which is a preview of a new mozilla browser game engine in firefox. Although hardware accell. is off it did show a very long stretched rectangular. Maybe this is because the game forces hardware accell? But here the rectangular also moved together with the camera movements and actually acted like a usual game texture. Memtest doesn't find anything wrong with my RAM. The intel cpu diagnostics tool didn't find anything wrong with the cpu either. The artifacts don't look like a GPU error, so this leads me to the conclusion that it might be the video RAM. Now it can be either the RAM of my nvidia or the one that's used by the i5 graphics. The intel diagnostics tool also tested the i5 GPU by revolving a 3d cube and it passed the test, but I don't know if it tested memory too. I doubt that it's an issue with the nvidia 'cause scrolling in a simple forum like MDL shouldn't trigger the nvidia to go on. Any ideas of what might be wrong? Or does anyone know what memory is used by the i5 GPU? EDIT: What I forgot to say is that there can be multiple squares in 1 Firefox window, it's not restricted to 1 displayed square at a time.
Since when did you observed that? Did you always had that hardware config or maybe changed something recently? What about OS updates? That is a useful clue - but I strongly believe this is a software and in particular renderer / driver issue. I haven't ever witnessed a faulty memory on a graphics card - which makes me think of it as a (very!) unlikely scenario... Even if there is a problem, they don't always do I am afraid I had similar issues in the recent past under 7 SP1. After wasting several hours on the issue, it turned out it was a driver issue. I dropped the cr@palyst bundle and manually installed an older, vendor-provided driver. So I would try that first if I was you. And from what I understood you have 2 GPUs on that system? Could it be a conflict there
Wel I can try if the issue is still there in WDP, cause actually I've ony tried it in windows 7 sp1. I've also ran furmark burn in for about 10 minutes btw and my GPU (nvidia) is max 76celcius btw, without artifacts. When running furmark on the intel GPU no artefacts were seen either. EDIT: At first look the problem isn't there in windows 8, so it's probably something with my 7 install. Either the fact that I integrated updates with dism (which shoudn't make a difference), or drivers. The only driver I can think of is the intel graphics driver that was updated some time before the problems began. Another thing is that I'm actually using mozilla nightly. I think about half a year ago nightly was experiencing UI problems (corrupted anti-aliasing of tabs and buttons), which reflected on the windows UI until you did a reboot. I'm using the same nightly build now on WDP, so maybe nightly conflicts with the intel driver somehow... But that's also weird cause I'm having the problem for almost a month now and mozilla should have time enough to fix it if it were there problem. So I blame either intel or mozilla @evlad: it's a notebook, so I can't check PSU, and the RAM is ok. @x86: cause it's a notebook it can't be a conflict between the GPUs cause if so it wouldn't be sold like this.
can be: video controller (try to experiment with: refresh rate, resolution of screen) memory controller ( try to adjust: direct video, page operation ...) or memory itself (no help - replace hardware) none of above up: can be power supply or dirt on contact with motherboard (resistance). - try with another power supply - clean contacts ~~~~~~~~~~ after all -> gremlins ...
...or M$ OK, let's focus on your 7 SP1 installation (x86 or x64?). What's your laptop's make / model? I would like to take a look at the specs Of course, it could always be mozilla; especially on a nightly build
Notebook coolers to have a small rib which is easy to keep the dust. CPU/GPU overheating can be a problem, I recommend carefully cleaning with a compressor. I had a similar problem.
It's an asus k73sv. It's about 1 month and 2 weeks old and didn't run in a dusty environment. I don't know about the CPU, but the GPU never gets over 76 or 77 °C during burn-in test, so I doubt the temps are a problem. Specs: CPU: i5-2410M (2.3Ghz, 2 cores with HT, intel processor graphics 3000) Graphics: Nvidia geforce GT540m with 1GB ddr3 4GB RAM (samsung I think) I don't know what the mainboard is, but I think asus used some mainboard that's made ou of 2 separate pieces. Asus builds mainboards so it's a custom one I guess. OS: Windows 7 sp1 x64 + updates up to september integrated with dism (only windows updates, no other stuff). I have the latest drivers installed for both the intel and nvidia graphics.
I indeed have the latest dirvers from intel and nvidia, the drivers from OEMs (asus in this case) always are a bit behind. The chipset driver is updated but it must be done by the exe, it complains when right clicking the inf and clicking install + I don't know exactly what devcices in device manager are updated, it are a few I think.
I only suggested downgrading those - as in my experience - latest isn't always the best. The latest from ATI causes problems to my HD3650AGP whilst decoding via DXVA. The one from ASUS (5 months older) works like a charm. Although you are facing a different issue there, it might as well do the trick for you as well...
But it isn't overheating. It doesn't overheat during stresstests, so it can't overhead when just browsing a webpage. I'll try downgrading the drivers when I'm home. EDIT: I downgraded my intel to the driver on the asus site and turned off the nvidia in device manager: problem still exists. EDIT 2: Things are getting worse now, sometimes my taskbar is freaking out. It's just a stroboscope then, with the speed depending on the speed of my mouse movements. The pointer is the only thing that changes on the screen, so it looks like this has something to do with the screenbuffer changing. BTW: the artifacts outside nightly also appear very frequent in vmware. Since it all began in nightly, I'll use IE9 for a while and see if it still appears anywhere in the system. Cause nightly is always running it still might be the cause, if no artifacts appear when nightly is off it is due to nightly.
Ok so current state: Nvidia off, intel driver from asus site, latest chipset drivers. Also artifacts in IE9 EDIT: I did a clean install friday and all looks to be OK now. EDIT 2: CRAP it happens again =(