Random Onscreen Dots of Color?

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xdivenx

[H]ard|Gawd
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Mar 4, 2008
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My system is an Asus m2n32-SLI mobo with a 9800gtxOC, 6GB of memory along with a 6000x2. This is all on Windows Vista 64.


I got home today and noticed random onscreen dots of color that appear in odd places. They appear on the white background of utorrent, they appear on some forums, and they also appear in counterstrike source, and some on Vista menus.. My first thought was this was a temperature problem, but after checking my temps ~60C (nothing special) and bumping my fan to 100% ( no overclocking going on anyway) they problem persisted.

I further went into Nvidia driver control panel and by changing the brightness and contrast, I noticed a large difference in dots depending on the setting. For example, at 42% contrast, the dots appear so much in this text box It is hard to see it. My cursor and the I-beam used in typing also affect where the dots are, wherever I move them there are no dots to the left.

So what do you guys think this is? A dud card (I've had it since November)? It can't be temp related because I am and have been running very coolly. Is it perhaps something OS level?

I am going to reseat the card, reinstall drivers, see what bios is like, and then check back for ideas. Thanks for the help!
 
Probably defective or failing memory on the card would be my guess, but as usual the old 'reseat and pray' procedure can't hurt.
 
Blue Falcon said:
Probably defective or failing memory on the card would be my guess, but as usual the old 'reseat and pray' procedure can't hurt.
Click to expand...

+1. My money is on RAM failing (prolly from overheating) but it worth a shot doing simple things first: reinstall drivers, reseat (clean the PCI-E gold contacts with a clean erasor, I swear it works wonders sometimes) and pray lol :D Best way to check is of course swap out the videocard but only if you have a spare.

McGuv: never heard of pixels going bad but even if they did, they'd be more persistent and not change in intensity/quantity when OP plays around with drivers.
 
The dots are usually Maroon/Red against white and green against black, and I am using an Acer P241w at 1920x1200, but it can't be the dots. Believe me, if you saw the differences brightness/ contrast make it would be ruled out.

Also, what is up with the dots not displayed near my cursor? I reinstalled drivers, no luck, I am going to see if it occurs in Bios, I guess that will rule out anything software. And after that I am reseating. BRB.
 
Yay, Problem solved. I ended up reseating the card and blowing out the internals and fingers using compressed air. Back to fragging!
 
It was most likely the cable tbh. :)

I had similar issues with a crappy DVI cable on my Soyo 24"... $5 cable from Monoprice solved that... :tup:
 
Blazestorm said:
It was most likely the cable tbh. :)

I had similar issues with a crappy DVI cable on my Soyo 24"... $5 cable from Monoprice solved that... :tup:
Click to expand...

Crappy? I love my 24 inch soyo topaz-s,but yes.It does the dot thingy sometimes also,and its not the card or connection.I just think the soyo has a brain fart sometimes.
 
my soyo does it too, i think i may have been having interference from my 1.2kW psu power cable ;). seems to be good now though that everything is moved :)
 
Heh, weird... like I said, I was using the DVI cable that came with it, it had those weird dots, I replaced it with a monoprice cable (on both of the Soyo's I had) and never saw those dots ever, the guy I sold them to is back to the stock cables and never mentioned anything

Maybe it was coincidence, but the cables were only $5 so meh...
 
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