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Random garbage lines appear on screen during video playback

C

CitizenInsomniac

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 26, 2005
Messages
134
Video card: Sapphire ATI Radeon X700 256MB
OS: Windows XP SP2 (x86)
Catalyst version: 5.8

Whenever I play video of any format in any software player, random horizontal colored lines appear on my screen. Green, red, purple, blue are the most common colors. Refreshing the screen makes them go away.

Here's a sample screenshot:

desktop.jpg


Any idea what could be causing it?
 
it's probably the crappy no-name power supply in your case.

that kind of thing can either be caused by 1) bad video card, 2) bad memory or 3) bad power supply.

playing video strains the vpu and eats up more power. between the 3500 and all your other stuff, i'd be willing to bet that your power supply is crapping out.

i had a case with a generic 450 watt built in power supply, and it blew up when i hooked up my 6800gt. there was purple smoke coming out. basically same other specs as what you have except for video. be careful.
 
That's a valid assumption, but here's my question: if my PSU was too weak, wouldn't i be seeing random freezes and hangs too?
 
Zinn said:
it's probably the crappy no-name power supply in your case.

that kind of thing can either be caused by 1) bad video card, 2) bad memory or 3) bad power supply.

playing video strains the vpu and eats up more power. between the 3500 and all your other stuff, i'd be willing to bet that your power supply is crapping out.
Click to expand...
Well, I just replaced my no-name PSU with a Rosewill RP500 (500W) PSU and I'm still experiencing the same problem.
Should I assume it's the video card?
 
my guess would be video card first. if you don't get hangs, psu is not in the problem list (or at least in the very bottom of it).
 
I know that Rosewill PSU, and it is actually pretty good. Looking at your info, I would think it is a simple matter of drivers.
First we need to clarify something: You wrote "OS: Windows XP SP2 (x86)", what does this "(x86)" mean? Do you mean you are running the 64-bit version of Windows? If you are, you MUST use the x64 version drivers from ATi and VIA.
So, determine which version of windows you have installed.
Uninstall your current video drivers and reset.
Install the newest VIA chipset drivers (x64 version if you are running Windows XP x64) and reset.
Install the newest (5.11 at this moment) Catalyst drivers from ATi (again, use the x64 version if you are running Windows XP x64) and reset.
If that doesn't work, check the physical connections of the card, and you monitor cable.
Good luck.
 
You might try reseating the card itself. A friend of mine had an old 9700 that came a bit loose for no apparent reason and caused tearing in games. Really odd problem.
 
Servant of Shodan said:
Looking at your info, I would think it is a simple matter of drivers.
First we need to clarify something: You wrote "OS: Windows XP SP2 (x86)", what does this "(x86)" mean? Do you mean you are running the 64-bit version of Windows? If you are, you MUST use the x64 version drivers from ATi and VIA.
So, determine which version of windows you have installed.
Uninstall your current video drivers and reset.
Install the newest VIA chipset drivers (x64 version if you are running Windows XP x64) and reset.
Install the newest (5.11 at this moment) Catalyst drivers from ATi (again, use the x64 version if you are running Windows XP x64) and reset.
If that doesn't work, check the physical connections of the card, and you monitor cable.
Good luck.
Click to expand...
x86 means 32-bit. I pointed it out to clarify that it's NOT Windows x64.
No need to uninstall all drivers because I already have all necessary drivers properly installed.

I doubt that the problem is related to any physical condition, such as inproper seating or cable because the problem ONLY occurs during video playback.
I'm fairly certain at this point that this is a driver issue, but it's hard to say whether it's on the ATI side or VIA side (on the PCI Express bus, for example). Here's what leads me to that conclusion: sliding the Direct3D acceleration slider in the ATI control panel towards the right (quality vs performance) seems to get rid of the garbage during video playback. However, doing that also adversely affects the playback performance in VMR windowless mode, so I can't keep the setting at anything less than Balanced.
Unless someone else is having this same issue and can point out a quick workaround or fix, I guess I have no choice but to file a bug with ATI and hope they fix it.
 
no offense, but i think your faith in rosewill is.. ill put. those units are really a crapshoot, we cant get a decent reliability "quote" on them due to the fact that newegg changes the OEM on them often, and different OEMs do different units..

what kind of ratings does this PSU have? do you get any corruption in games?

if you are sure its the GPU, just RMA it.
 
The RP500 specs are +3.3V@30A, +5V@45A, +12V@26A.

Why does everyone keep insisting on this being a PSU issue? It just seems highly unlikely:

1) The problem only occurs during video playback.
2) I have changed the PSU and haven't noticed any reduction or increase in occurence of random video garbage during playback.
 
CitizenInsomniac said:
No need to uninstall all drivers because I already have all necessary drivers properly installed.
Click to expand...

No, really...you need to uninstall your present drivers. You said you have Catalyst 5.8 installed at the moment -- well ATi is on Catalyst 5.11 now. That means you need to upgrade, and you need to do it AFTER uninstalling the present driver.
Seriously, just give it a shot like I outlined above...what have you got to loose? And after you install the newest drivers, reinstall DirectX9.0c. I'm sure you already have it installed, but just try installing it again.
It often surprises me how something that you would think wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference solves all your problems.
 
Servant of Shodan said:
No, really...you need to uninstall your present drivers. You said you have Catalyst 5.8 installed at the moment -- well ATi is on Catalyst 5.11 now. That means you need to upgrade, and you need to do it AFTER uninstalling the present driver.
Click to expand...
That message was posted in September when 5.8 *was* the current driverset. :) I have in the meantime upgraded to 5.9, 5.10 and 5.11, and soon to 5.12 - with no luck. I have done both upgrades and clean installs (after wiping the drivers with the ATI cleanup tool). I wasn't dismissing your suggestion - I merely meant that I had already tried it all.
 
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