Hi, just arrived and I've a dumb question which is probably in the wrong location!

...to which I'm sure I already know the answer. Hello everyone anyway!

I would like to know how upgradable - or rather repairable - the Amilo Pi 1536 model is.

I have a nasty feeling that the graphics card is about to chuck itself off a virtual cliff! My first thought was DX errors but all tat checks out, near as I can tell.

Recently, there have been a lot of graphics glitches in the games I have installed. These range from Doom3, FEAR to ancient ones like Duke3d. The glitches (such as large discoloured pixles in older games and those horrible triangles and planes that look like stretched out textures and vertex defects) only manifest in games and not in other graphics intensive software such as 3ds max. The desktop, browser etc are all fine.

secretly, I'm hoping someone will tell me it's because I recently installed Media Player 11 and that it is causing 3d errors.

 

Sounds faulty to me. I've only encountered a problem like this when there's been a driver issue, faulty hardware or overclocking performed.

 

Well I'm wholey against overclocking. Never saw the point of reducing life expectency of your hardware.

I suppose the question is am I going to have to splash out on a new laptop since - although the graphics card is not integrated - upgrading (and therefore presumably simply replacing with the same type) is a 99.999% nono?

 

When did the issues start happening? Did you install any software immediately before the issues started to occur? And are you using Vista or XP?

 

XPsp2. The issues started recently and are getting worse. BUT, the defects only happen in certain areas and will vanish or change if one turns the game character away.

trying to get some screenshots up.





The only recently installed software which alters any vid codec settings is MP11

Thinking about it, it looks like pixle shader issues as it reminds me of a DX problem I had on another computer five years ago, but that was an outright compatability issue.

Just to add, the card is an ATI MR X1400

 

What game is that in the screenshots? Did the issues start before or after installation of WMP11? Are you using the latest Radeon drivers?

 

shots from doom3. Issues started round about the time I installed MP11 (I say round aout because they may have been there but unnoticable). Latest drivers... uncertain. Been looking for new ones as a matter of course... a google serch for card specific drivers led right back to this forum and there seems to be no driver more recent than 2006.

 

Have you ran dxdiag to see if there are any issues with DirectX?

 

I have. unless I missed something, they check out

 

Ah ok well have you know that you can use the very latest Catalyst drivers with your card? Download and install this and see how things go:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1817

You might even get better performance than before!

 

Figeratively and literally... OUCH!
Tried those and uninstalled them.
System performance dropped like a tonn weight over a neutron star
Got three Stop Errors and the poor processor got so hot that I could not touch the laptop.

 

Oh dear, sorry. OK, do you have System Restore on your machine?

 

Don't worry about it. I've reinstaled the old drivers. still got those defects though.

 

No I mean to rollback to before the installation of WMP11. Also do ever get any BSOD or crashes at all with your machine?

 

Very rarey. This is the most stable system I've ever had.


Oh typical. The earliest available system restore is the day AFTER I installed MP11!

 

Oh dear. Well I'd say the only options left are to back-up everything, format and install Windows again. If you still have the issue then it's more than likely that there is a fault with the X1400.

 

it's likely. thanks anyways

 

No problem mate, hope you get it sorted