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Pixels dancing - heat issue?

K

KuJaX

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Jan 8, 2001
Messages
15,783
A good friend of mine has four monitors plugged into his computer using two ATI 3650 PCI-Express video cards. Two of his monitors he has in vertical orientation and the other two are in horizontal orientation. The issue is that after some time, if he CLICKS with his mouse on either of the two vertical monitors then where he clicks starts to pixelate and it "spreads like a spider web" onto both vertical monitors until he can't even read any text/graphics on his screen. This is simply in windows in any application such as FireFox or Photoshop. The strangest part is that the spreading does not go onto the other two monitors which are in horizontal orientation.

When he told me about this I told him that it is most likely a bad video card from heat. However, he swapped the ports around on the back where the monitors plug in by DVI and it seems to be consistent with the vertical monitors. A simple restart fixes the issue, until it happens again (could be hours or even the next day that it will happen).

To me it sounded like a heat issue on one of the video cards, but if he gets the same issue even after swapping the ports around then that should mean that it isnt a bad video card. Could it still be related to heat?

He said he is running the latest drivers with Catalyst from ATI's website. He sets the vertical monitors into vertical orientation from the Catalyst Control Panel software from ATI. Is it possible that the drivers or maybe Catalyst are somehow causing this issue?

What is everyone's opinion?
 
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I'd look at the drivers, yeah; the latest Catalyst release (whatever 9.11 or 9.12, week or so ago) entirely wrecked my 4870X2's stability/performance, so it got rolled back (Guru3D has a pretty extensive archive of old drivers), friend with 4850 CF reported BSoDs with the same (new) drivers

other stuff I'd want to see:
put them all horizontal, still happen?
put them all vertical, still happen?
if it seems to be the result of the driver rotation, if they're Samsung monitors, try MagicRotate instead (I'm sure theres other software, I just know that my Samsung came with a CD loaded with all sorts of little "utilities" that my drivers cover, like screen rotation)
what kind of temps are the cards reporting? if they aren't, what kind of ambient is the system reporting?
Windows 2000/XP or Windows Vista/7? (and if Vista/7, how much of the DirectX on Desktop crap is enabled?)
HydraVision installed or not?

longshot ideas:
viruses?
some sort or 3rd party multi-mon management software installed? (DisplayFusion, Ultramon, etc)
multi-desktop control software? (VNC, Input Director, LANDesk, etc)
power supply?
Windows itself?
 
obobski said:
I'd look at the drivers, yeah; the latest Catalyst release (whatever 9.11 or 9.12, week or so ago) entirely wrecked my 4870X2's stability/performance, so it got rolled back (Guru3D has a pretty extensive archive of old drivers), friend with 4850 CF reported BSoDs with the same (new) drivers

other stuff I'd want to see:
put them all horizontal, still happen?
put them all vertical, still happen?
if it seems to be the result of the driver rotation, if they're Samsung monitors, try MagicRotate instead (I'm sure theres other software, I just know that my Samsung came with a CD loaded with all sorts of little "utilities" that my drivers cover, like screen rotation)
what kind of temps are the cards reporting? if they aren't, what kind of ambient is the system reporting?
Windows 2000/XP or Windows Vista/7? (and if Vista/7, how much of the DirectX on Desktop crap is enabled?)
HydraVision installed or not?

longshot ideas:
viruses?
some sort or 3rd party multi-mon management software installed? (DisplayFusion, Ultramon, etc)
multi-desktop control software? (VNC, Input Director, LANDesk, etc)
power supply?
Windows itself?
Click to expand...

I am assuming that he is running the latest ATI 9.12. I was going to recommend him try an older version of drivers to see if that fixes the issue.

He is using Catalyst Control Panel to rotate the two displays. They are Samsung's, so i'll tell him to try MagicRotate instead.

He is running XP with nod32 anti virus. No multiple monitor management or multi desktop software that I know of. Knowing him, he probably has a 1000 watt power supply.
 
wow, what ironic luck that they're Samsung monitors

I'd honestly just run down the list, when it starts happening, take a step back, you've found the problem
 
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