Please help me diagnose/fix R1 display problem?

I bought my M11x R1 with the mistaken idea that it would be great for video editing (it must be if it can play games, I thought!). I believe I should have got a faster CPU. Apart from that, there's something wrong with video:

When I load or close down programs the GUIs have bits missing or there are leftovers on the screen. Here are some examples which I hope you can understand:

This is my desktop (scuse the junk) after I've closed down Freemake Video Converter:



The osprey and the icons you can see are my desktop, but see the bits of Freemake's frame still sitting there.

These are examples of bits of programs showing on my taskbar, which have no business being there. I have to click along the taskbar and they gradually disappear:

(1)



(2)



Here you can see spaces between some of the quick-launch icons - if I click on them the taskbar gradually becomes "normal":




I have the same setup (Win7 64-bit and programs) on my Asus G1Sn and that does not exhibit the problems.

I do hope you can help.

 

hmmm... I would try a clean wipe of the GFX driver and re-install the one from dells website

driver sweeper software

 

How many RAMs do you have?

 

Fluffy, I've just updated the video driver for the Asus so don't know why I'm so nervous about messing with the Alien. Thanks for the link, I would have just gone thru Device Manager.

Descalzo I didn't think that RAM would be the problem even tho it only has the original 4gb (that used to be a huge amount not so long ago). And I've found out that it's 2x2gb, the devils, so I think I will buy one 4gb stick and chuck one 2gb. Do you think 6gb will be enough? I don't play games, just lots of video recording and editing (calm down boyz, it's only wildlife cams ), and playing video on TV via wifi.

Am going to buy the RAM before I attack the video driver cos I'm good at spendin'

EDIT - I've ordered 8gb from Crucial.

The download link for the driver cleaner leads to 404 not found

 

Its likely not your vid driver IMO having seen similar (but not with current setup). Resource issue - ram? maybe.

 

could also be hardrive failing mayby? ive had this happend to me or windows are gonna take a dump i usually do a clean install of windows i just dont know what other people put on it or mayby getting hot?

 

There's no hint of over-heating, and I only bought the laptop 2-3 months ago - oops, doesn't time fly? it's 4 months - so surely it wouldn't be the hard drive unless it was faulty

Defragged last night and ordered RAM, so fingers crossed - I'll let you know the outcome.

Thanks so much for all the suggestions

 

Now have 8gb Crucial RAM installed. Notice slightly faster opening of programs, and access to other laptop on the network is faster, but am still getting display issues in the taskbar and system tray area:





If I hover-drag my mouse over the areas the blue background of the taskbar fills in as it should be.

I have never switched the graphics from Intel to nVidia - can it be done at will or do you have to wait for certain conditions to do it? And do you think it would make any difference?

 

eh? switch then! Some apps have to be closed first but it will tell you.

 

Done that (thanks). After I closed the indicated programs I had to click Save Power. Which doesn't seem related to changing from Intel to nVidia graphics, has it gone as it should?

Ta :confused2:

 

er, save power is intel.

 

Well, the taskbar display hasn't been a problem since I did Fn+F6 when you bullied me into it - and it's the only time I've ever done it. Does that mean I've been running on the nVidia card all this time, and that there must be a fault with it?

I'll re-do Fn+F6 and see if it makes a difference.

EDIT:

Done that, got box up offering to install audio drivers :-/





Went ahead with it. Will see how things go. Thanks for your help, any more suggestions to get this M11x fit for video editing will be gratefully received

 

Hope you get it sorted! Since the R1 is not using optimus (did you try the mod drivers?) you should not have to worry about which card is active once you see the before and after using Fn+F6

If however you are using the modified drivers or did previously I suppose it might be possible this would give you some trouble (doubt it).

Video edits: I use movie maker as it does what I need.

I just checked using the mod-optimus config I have now and WLMM is not avail to choose NVIDIA in the control panel. I should do some edits and test if slower with these drivers.

Compare feature: Windows Live Movie Maker, VideoPad Video Editor, vReveal - Softonic
CONFIRMED: Windows Movie Maker Live 2011 is broken with 285.58 drivers - NVIDIA Forums

 

Should ask: did your odd screen issues go away?

 

The only thing I've ever done is unlock the overclock in the BIOS.

I don't use MovieMaker cos it seemed I would have to install a load of cwap with it, Windows Live Essentials I think it was. I use Freemake Video Editor, that's the one that leaves bits of itself on the screen when closed down (as per early screenshot above), and it's not doing that any more. The taskbar is mended too

I've been looking at the new drivers thread but don't trust myself to attempt it.

Thanks so much for the input, G

 

duh, right. Didn't remember that.

Live essentials lets you choose the apps from the "live" family. There is no issue with MovieMaker so you might as well have it in your arsenal. Live Mail is the new "express" and is quite ok also.

If there are no issues then no need to rock the boat with drivers.

 

for me:
cpu use for Freemake = 75-85%**
cpu use for MovieMaker = 90-100%

Encoding time was nearly the same for a 1:13sec HD MOV to WMV conversion but I forgot to use same resolution (both using HD defaults). I know the FVC took 3m58sec while MM was less precise (no report) but timing it was about 4m20sec.

However the MM resolution was higher. This means to me anyway that for smaller projects if your only concern is time there is no advantage for WMV output. Less CPU cycles though could mean you can work on other things!

Note: FVC would NOT use nvidia chip FOR AVI OUTPUT until I turned off auto select in FVC pref. This means that the same MOV input file converted to AVI would nearly max the CPU until I made this change then it dropped about 10+%. Oddly making this change had no impact on WMV output even if I tried to prevent nvidia use.

Thanks for the heads up on the program, looks handy! Declined the toolbar install tho.

 

I don't remember Freemake offering a toolbar but it does offer FF plug-in, which I decline.

G, you are so clever technically, I do this vid-editing by the seat of my pants However, I've just turned off auto-select in FVC and ticked CUDA, and it must be my imagination or wishful thinking but it seems to be nippier to navigate.

The incoming stream I deal with is extremely poor quality - but the end users don't mind because they're bird enthusiasts, it's what's happening that matters. Because of the poor quality I use flv because it's so much faster to upload to YouTube, but I've tried mp4, avi, wmv, asf... I use VLC to record an mms stream from one nest but currently am having to capture screen with Debut, just as well I have 2 laptops.

So... I spend ages skipping thru recorded footage looking for "events" to extract. FVC is not accurate enough for fine-tuning though. I also have Tip-ard , which you can adjust to the second, but the preview pane is so tiny I can't see what the heck I'm looking at

All very interesting, I'm sure

The spaces in the taskbar are back, got them in the system tray area just now.

On reboot I did Fn+F6 again, selected more power (whatever it's called) and it tried to go thru the audio driver installation again. I said "skip it" and closed it down but then got a popup saying that unspecified drivers had been installed and my device was ready to use

*I had to put a hyphen in that word because the system kept removing it as if it was an expletive.

clemenzina

 

Oh! Sounds like extra work you have going on. If you are controlling the stream are you able to only record on movement? Would cut down the workload quite a bit.

Got no tips for you but give the Live Movie Maker a look.

 

I will look at Live Movie Maker - thanks a lot, G