# Strange dots on screen in areo ???



## rampage (Jun 6, 2010)

i have a new rig i have built up, (see specs) and i am having strange dots in the exact same spots on the screen when displayed through a windows edge (fire fox, msn ect) using aero (see pic), and also when windows starts up at the windows splash screen i have 3 or 4 white ling going across the screen 

i have updated the mobo's bios, gfx drivers 10.5, 10.5a, 10.4a, used different monitors, different cables dvi and hdmi, and i am having the same issues

there is no over clock and the 5870 dose work fine in another system, i have heard of the 890 chip set having issue, but still i'm stuck and want to launch the system.

also i used to have issues with bad company 2 and in the main menu and in game all the different textures flashing randomly (eg people, roofs, vehicles ect) but that seams to be fixed with he mobo bios udate


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## Mussels (Jun 6, 2010)

didnt you solve this already?

i thought the BIOS update/ram to auto solved it


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## rampage (Jun 6, 2010)

no. its still there. it appears to have fixed the in game issues tho


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## Bo$$ (Jun 6, 2010)

rampage said:


> no. its still there. it appears to have fixed the in game issues tho



sounds like a memory issue in bad company


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## oli_ramsay (Jun 6, 2010)

clean your monitor


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## rampage (Jun 6, 2010)

lol, the dots were random when the pc was restated, and i keep my monitor clean

now for more strangeness, i tryed the 5870 in my torrent box (see sig) and the issue was there but no where as bad, and i also installed a 8800gt and latest drivers on my main rig, no issues

after putting back the 5870 into my main rig all the issues have gone 3 reboots in a row, but i also had disconnected a fan running of a 7v adapter, so im thinking its either a power issues due to the adapter and crappy psu in the torrent box of installing the nvidia drivers did something, time will tell as its only been 20 min so far, time for Bad company 2 for more testing


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## Indra EMC (Jun 6, 2010)

Did you try your PC in another monitor ? it could be *DEAD PIXEL*,


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## Bo$$ (Jun 6, 2010)

oli_ramsay said:


> clean your monitor





Indra EMC said:


> Did you try your PC in another monitor ? it could be *DEAD PIXEL*,



Both of you look at the screenshot please... 



good luck rampage


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## Mussels (Jun 6, 2010)

yeah thats a screenshot, not a photo... lol


i'm starting to wonder if its dust/dirt on the PCI-E contact of the 5870, and thus reseating it may be why its erratic.


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## Bo$$ (Jun 6, 2010)

Mussels said:


> yeah thats a screenshot, not a photo... lol
> 
> 
> i'm starting to wonder if its dust/dirt on the PCI-E contact of the 5870, and thus reseating it may be why its erratic.


 
sounds possible but quite unlikely, maybe card wasnt in properly in the first place


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## Mussels (Jun 6, 2010)

Bo$$ said:


> sounds possible but quite unlikely, maybe card wasnt in properly in the first place



rampage is my brother, i've been trying to help him fix this one for over a week. i'm pretty sure he's taken it out of the slot a few times by now.


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## rampage (Jun 6, 2010)

card has been in and out at least 5 times and different slots and cleaned out and its a new mobo. still unsure what was the issue, i'm leaning towards the 7v adapter i was using for the fan, don't know how or why, but its to only thing that was changed, besides installing a 8800gt and drivers


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## Nick259 (Jun 6, 2010)

Couldn't it be graphics card artifacting? I had an x1950pro that artifacted in certain games such as Crysis and UT3. It didn't show signs in many other demanding games such as oblivion. Anyway, I RMA'd it and got another one.


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## Bo$$ (Jun 6, 2010)

does it happen if you turn aero off?


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## rampage (Jun 6, 2010)

it dosnt happen when i turn aero off because. i can only see the dots through the see through windo that appears with areo,  but i haven't had the issue sense playing with he nvidia card and removing the 7v adapter


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## rampage (Jun 11, 2010)

ok, been away for a few days turn the pc on and im back to square one, all the issues are back, looks like its a hardware issue ;(


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## Bo$$ (Jun 11, 2010)

try and relax your memory timings??


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## qubit (Jun 11, 2010)

rampage said:


> ok, been away for a few days turn the pc on and im back to square one, all the issues are back, looks like its a hardware issue ;(



Reading through this thread, I get the impression that it's a faulty graphics card - specifically faulty RAM. The fact it did this in the torrent PC is pretty much a verify, even if it's not the best PC going. The intermittent nature points to hardware too.

As Mussels is your brother, could you perhaps try it once more in his PC and give it a go? It's a decent one with a good PSU. If you see even the teeniest bit of intermittent artifacting, then it's the graphics card for sure.

You could also try to *gently* flex the card while it's running and seeing if the picture corrupts. If it does, try to get it to do this in two computers and you have your verify.


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## Mussels (Jun 11, 2010)

qubit said:


> Reading through this thread, I get the impression that it's a faulty graphics card - specifically faulty RAM. The fact it did this in the torrent PC is pretty much a verify, even if it's not the best PC going. The intermittent nature points to hardware too.
> 
> As Mussels is your brother, could you perhaps try it once more in his PC and give it a go? It's a decent one with a good PSU. If you see even the teeniest bit of intermittent artifacting, then it's the graphics card for sure.
> 
> You could also try to *gently* flex the card while it's running and seeing if the picture corrupts. If it does, try to get it to do this in two computers and you have your verify.



i'm 400KM away from him, so its not an easy thing. he could always post it up to me and i can simply test it in my PC, but that means him going without a card for a while.


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## ucanmandaa (Jun 11, 2010)

have you tried flashing 5870 with a newer bios? When i first got my asus 5870 back in January it had similar problems. I solved it by flashing with a newer sapphire 5870 bios (vapor-x one).
I take no responsibility if anything goes wrong though.


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## qubit (Jun 11, 2010)

Mussels said:


> i'm 400KM away from him, so its not an easy thing. he could always post it up to me and i can simply test it in my PC, but that means him going without a card for a while.



Hmmm... posting it is likely too much hassle and expense, not to mention that it could either damage the card or make it "go good" for a bit. 

If he can find a friend with a decent PC (decent PSU especially) within easy reach, then he should try my troubleshooting suggestions. He than has a strong case when it comes to RMAing the card.


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## Mussels (Jun 11, 2010)

qubit said:


> Hmmm... posting it is likely too much hassle and expense, not to mention that it could either damage the card or make it "go good" for a bit.
> 
> If he can find a friend with a decent PC (decent PSU especially) within easy reach, then he should try my troubleshooting suggestions. He than has a strong case when it comes to RMAing the card.



lol he has a corsair HX1000, and it still had issues on it. ATM we're thinking BIOS flash may do it.

The thing is if he changes from Aero to a 2D windows theme, he is glitch/artifact free in gaming. If it was hardware, how can that be explained?


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## Fourstaff (Jun 11, 2010)

corrupted Win 7 install?


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## Mussels (Jun 11, 2010)

Fourstaff said:


> corrupted Win 7 install?



on two systems?


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## Fourstaff (Jun 11, 2010)

Mussels said:


> on two systems?



Just randomly posting what came up to my mind (read: spamming). For all we know it can be anything.


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## hat (Jun 11, 2010)

Sounds like the card is artifacting. Try what Mussels said first... clean the PCI-E contacts on the card with some high percentage rubbing alcohol (I normally use 91%), blow out the PCI-E slot on the board with an air compressor/can of compressed air. If that doesn't solve it, it's probably RMA time...


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## Mussels (Jun 11, 2010)

Fourstaff said:


> Just randomly posting what came up to my mind (read: spamming). For all we know it can be anything.



ATM i'm thinking bad UVD/low 3D clocks on the card, which can be fixed with a BIOS flash.

hat: when he disables aero, the problems go away in the games....


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## ucanmandaa (Jun 11, 2010)

my card was artifact free in games (3d mode) too i forgot to mention that. Artifacts and corruption were only visible when card was in 2d mode i.e. desktop/aero.


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## qubit (Jun 11, 2010)

Mussels said:


> lol he has a corsair HX1000, and it still had issues on it. ATM we're thinking BIOS flash may do it.
> 
> The thing is if he changes from Aero to a 2D windows theme, he is glitch/artifact free in gaming. If it was hardware, how can that be explained?



I think it could be the card, because he saw this on the torrent PC, so every other possible faulty component was effectively swapped out.

It's possible that switching on Aero could reveal faults, as the card is working in 3D mode. It could also be a driver issue, but I've not seen this problem reported by others. I have seen other graphics cards display this sort of symptom, however. An overclocked card of mine running W1zzard's ATI Tool stress test displaying yellow dot artifacts comes to mind. The bigger the overclock, the more artifacts.

It's also possible that his PSU is faulty, but I have to agree that it's highly unlikely and the whole PC would likely crash instead. Same with the motherboard. However, "unlikely" is nothing compared to a double verify!


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## rampage (Jun 11, 2010)

to clear things up, this is what has happend so far

sence talking to mussels on the phone and a bit more detailed looking at the issues here is what i have so far

- the card was artifacting at windows start up screen with white lines accress the screen
- blotchy blobs on the desktop when looking through a window with aero (see pic OP)
- random dots floating around the screen when at desktop
- texture issues in bad company 2 some times (restaring the game a few times would make the issue go away)
- random green dots when watching files with VLC player

i had tried the card in different systems with different drivers ect, same issues still appeared

but what was interesting is

- in dirt 2 i have had zero issues, as well with 3dmark 05

so it is looking like possibly a DX10 issue? (but have updated all of that)

also when i turn win 7's theme to basic (non aero) ALL of my isses go away even at boot up, and when i change back to a aero theam the issues DONT come back untill a reboot

so as said above by others i am thinking it is a bad UVD/low 3D clocks on the card so my next step is a bios flah on the card, either to a later XFX bios of another newer "generic" 5870 bios. im away the next few days so i will find out around monday tuesday when im back if that has worked


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## Solaris17 (Jun 11, 2010)

rampage said:


> to clear things up, this is what has happend so far
> 
> sence talking to mussels on the phone and a bit more detailed looking at the issues here is what i have so far
> 
> ...



change clocks. install latest DX10 redistributable.


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## rampage (Jun 11, 2010)

re installed the latest dx10 tonight before work tonight. havent changed any clocks yet, i might have a crack at that in 4 hrs when im home from work


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Jun 11, 2010)

I had this issue with my 4850 in XP.  Ends up it was the cat control, and updating to the newest version fixed it.  I thought the dots were part of the background but I just realized we had the same issue!


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## ucanmandaa (Jun 11, 2010)

let me guess your vga bios version: VER012.011.000.006.034494. This was the bios version that gave me troubles on asus 5870.
I flashed my card with sapphire vaporx (875core/1250mem) bios and all my problems (same as yours) disappeared
sapphire bios version that I used was: VER012.019.000.002.000000

you can view your cards bios version using GPU-Z


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## rampage (Jun 12, 2010)

a huge thanks to everyone, and especially mussels, a bios flash fixed it. @ ucanmandaa i was at VER012.014.000.005.035264 but went up to the latest xfx bios i could find in the TPU data base and and running with the clocks of 875/ 1250..

only issue is the fan speed is a bit high, but nothing msi afterburner wont fix for now, eventually i will mod the bios's fan speeds once i work out what i settings i want


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## Mussels (Jun 12, 2010)

god damnit, you share the same surname (where mussels is from) and you STILL cant spell it right!


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## rampage (Jun 12, 2010)

fixed  smart ass


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## ucanmandaa (Jun 12, 2010)

good to hear that you fixed your card, now enjoy your card


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## Mussels (Jun 12, 2010)

ucanmandaa said:


> good to hear that you fixed your card, now enjoy your card



he cant. its problem free now, so he'll get bored, give it to me and buy something else to cause him trouble.... its what he usually does.


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## rampage (Jun 12, 2010)

true so true,  mussels do you want a amd 890 chip set mobo ? ..  im bored


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## Mussels (Jun 12, 2010)

rampage said:


> true so true,  mussels do you want a amd 890 chip set mobo ? ..  im bored



chuck in some DDR3 and you have a deal.


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## Bo$$ (Jun 14, 2010)

Mussels said:


> chuck in some DDR3 and you have a deal.



real deal maker at work


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