G73JH-A1 32bit colour issues with W7

Hi all - first post sorry it's a question but it's out of desperation as I can't find a solution to this anywhere.

A few weeks ago my G73JH developed the GPU overheating problem, it was RMA'd and returned to me with a note saying they'd replaced the graphics card. Unfortunately they left me with a new issue, when looking at windows and menus in Windows 7 (64bit) certain menus had distorted text, like a halo effect. The taskbar was all blocky and pixellated.

Playing around with the display settings in windows, I found I could solve the issue with the taskbar by turning off transparency. But this still left the issue with menus being distorted/halo effect on certain fonts/text. So I tried turning the catalyst drivers from 32bit colour to 16bit colour and low and behold this solved all visual problems. Only thing is I can't launch any games in 16bit mode

Here are a few photos to explain what I mean;
https://picasaweb.google.com/102527920964885722276/G73JHDisplayIssueJpegs#

I've tried this on catalyst 10.1, 10.8, 10.12 and 11.1 all do the same thing. I'm running bios 211.

Sorry if this has been mentioned before but all the issues I searched through seemed to be about GSOD/BSOD/PSOD I couldn't find any help related to this. Any feedback would be really appreciated!! Am worried that ASUS are going to say it's a driver issue not their problem but it wasn't like this before it went away.

 

Boot to the BIOS and check to see if the new GPU has the current beta vBIOS. (see link below for version info) If not, then update it. If you do that, and it's still muffed up, then uninstall your ATI drivers, then ATI Crap Cleaner, and install 11.01a Hotfix Jan 26

 

Hi Chastity
The vbios was version 377 so I flashed it to the updated version. Then followed your instructions to install the latest catalyst drivers, first 11.1 then the hotfix, but when i ran the hotfix it said my display drivers were up to date so it didn't modify anything.

Unfortunately the issue's i'm having with the distorted text, like the jpeg showing my windows inbox, are still there.

Oddly the issue did fix itself temporarily yesterday. I was coming out of a game back to desktop and noticed the display brightness switched up. I was on battery power at the time. So I thought i'd test it on an aero theme but that flicked it back to the old problem.

Now my vbios and catalyst drivers are up to date, do you think this could be a windows 7 issue? Thanks for your help so far.

 

If the distortion doesn't show up in the bios, it's a windows error.

 

When you install the hotfix package, it's a complete driver set. No need to do the WHQL then overlay hotfix.

Seems something is still muffed up. First off, uninstall 11.01, then boot into safe mode. Run the ATI Crap Cleaner or Driver Sweeper 2.85, or both.
Reboot, and install 11.01a.

 

Just thought i'd provide an update. Followed your advice but drivers didn't solve the issue. So as a last resort I tried doing a complete system restore to factory defaults, low and behold the issue was still there so can only assume the graphics card is faulty or wasn't installed correctly. Have my second RMA organised for next week but in the meantime is there anything else left to try?

 

Don't forget to redo the vBIOS on the new card too

 

Just thought i'd post an update. Got the laptop back after it's second RMA, this time no problems, the docket said 'replaced VGA PCB, passed test' and the part number was 60-NY8VG1000-C14 description G73JH VGA_BD./AS carried out by LetMeRepair UK Ltd.

So sounds like they replaced just the printed circuit board on the radeon card rather than the entire card, which seems odd but at least it works now. I think the vBios is still the same as the one I flashed up to.

Anyway just wanted to say thanks to Chastity for taking an interest in my problem and for the helpful suggestions

 

Nah, they changed the video card. They wouldn't unsolder anything.