Graphic card issue... or is it?

[persius]

Earlier today I started to notice some issues when attempting to play movies on my PC and then when I attempted to launch an online game. My screen started to "snow" and the movie froze. I tried various players i.e. media player & VLC etc. and the same static appeared. In fact, my PC froze and I had to reboot. A message appeared at the bottom right of the screen (screen shot attached). I deleted my graphic driver and reinstalled the latest version thinking that would resolve the problem but sadly it didn't.

I'm able to watch youtube videos & streaming videos without any issues and I can open image files without any problems either. The only issues that I have noticed are video files & the game I have. In fact, playing around with some movies I have, I did notice that when I played the movie and maximized the window the movie played flawlessly and I was able to pause, FF and stop & start etc. The problem surfaces when I attempt to adjust the movie window size by manually changing the size on my monitor. When I click "start" on the movie it opens and plays perfectly. The "snow" & system freeze only manifests when I try to incrementally resize the video window.

I have done all the troubleshooting I can think of and I'm now beginning to suspect it may be a virus but before resorting to a reformat I wanted to see if there may be some other issue/s that I have overlooked. If anybody has any thoughts to share I would appreciate hearing from you.


Thank you.

 

[TechnoMage]

It could just be a Video RAM problem. Plug-In video cards have the ram on-board, so to clean it, you pretty well have to clean the entire board.
I just wash mine in warm water with a good detergent, like DAWN, using an old toothbrush to scrub around the ram chips. Don't forget to thoroughly clean the edge connector.

If the video is ON-Board, then the system RAM subs as the Video Ram, and it too can be taken out and washed.
After a thorough cleaning, a rinse in warm water, followed by a second rinse in Denatured Alcohol, followed up by a thorough drying, is required before putting the board back in the PC.
I've used this technique many, many, many, times over the years to solve weird video problems.
* Washing us usually the last step in PC-Board manufacture. (I only know that, because I used to make PC boards)

Good Luck,
TM

 

[davexnet]

For any situation like this where you're not sure if it's software or hardware related,
simply create and boot up a Linux Live DVD and see if you encounter any issues running that