Screen/vga problem, please take a look :)

Hey everybody!

So I've been having some problems. When I alt tab of a game, my computer sometimes runs extremely slow and I see a lot of bugs on my screen.

Here's an example: VID00050 - YouTube

In this video I had Diablo 3 open on the background and this was happening, constant stutter + black dots on screen. Sometimes the dots are colored and all over the screen on random places. Also, trying to change tabs on chrome is very slow, running videos is slow + screen bugs, etc.

I have a G73Jh-A1. I bought it 2 years ago and updated my bios and vbios to the lattest of the time, which I believe are still the same, even though I'm not completely sure. This is my vbios: http://puu.sh/1rkJF And my BIOS I believe is the 213 version.

I run the factory installation of Windows 7.

My video drivers are as follow: http://puu.sh/1rkAH

I have an external monitor on 1680x1050 and my notebook's screen is at 1920x1080. I'm using both at the same time.

Does anybody have idea of what going on?


Thanks in advance for any insights!

 

First of all, your ATI drivers are very outdated. I would update those first before doing anything else.

What temperatures are you getting on your laptop? Those dots could be artifacts and the slows downs could be due to throttling which occurs at high temperatures.

And just to make sure, this is while you are plugged in to AC power and are running from the High Performance power profile, right?

 

Thanks for replying

- Temperatures are okish I believe. This is 10 minutes of Fur Mark: http://puu.sh/1rltH
Just made the test for this reply. I think temperatures don't go this high when playing... Also, no artifacts appeared while running Fur Mark. The rest of the computer was slow, but no halts and artifacts which are constant on the situations described.

Diablo 3 + alt tab is a complete mess. AutoCAD also produced these results, a lot of artifacts when alt tabbing.

- Yup, AC power. My battery died, I don't even have it in. And I'm using High Performance.



Do you have any driver version suggestion? Lattest? Are they optimized for these "old" cards?

 

Unfortunately, I don't have an ATI card, but I would assume that the latest drivers would still support your card.

After 10 mins. of Furmark those are definitely good temperatures, so I think we can rule out heat.

This could still be a throttling issue that is not related to heat. You could try downloading ThrottleStop. From what I've read the G73 sometimes gets "stuck" in a slower CPU clock that can be fixed by running ThrottleStop. TS can also be used to overclock and measure temperatures.

Do these artifacts only appear after you alt-tab? Once they appear, do they appear in your games too? Or just outside the game?

How is your gaming performance? Would you say it's normal or has it been really sluggish lately?

Artifacts can be indicators of a dying GPU or too high of an overclock.

 

I have no ideia of how to use ThrottleStop or what it does. I just opened it and hit TURN ON and everything was solved, lol. Computer was smooth on alt tab. Coincidence maybe? Care to explain what might have happened? Here's a ss of TS with Diablo 3 running + youtube video (same situation of the video on OP): http://puu.sh/1rmcC

Answers:
Artifacts never get stuck on screen, they always appear and disappear quickly, as shown on the video posted on OP. And they only appear after alt tab. Never ever I get them when on the game.

Gaming performance is just as good as always.

Thanks again

 

That's great! Yeah I was worried it could be a dying GPU as those tend to cause artifacts, but I'm glad everything is working again!

I'm not super familiar with the bug, but it is a BIOS issue that affects a lot of the laptops with the first gen i-series CPUs. It can be fixed by flashing a custom bios but it's much easier and safer to just run ThrottleStop on startup.

TS is a great little program though. I use the Set Multiplier to the lowest to extend battery life when I'm out and force turbo when gaming on AC power.

 

Hmz, it may be a issue with the card switching between different performance states which could mean 2d clocks need modified or its a driver bug.