Problem with display

Observe:


This problem arose recently. I think it might be after I installed Gunbound. Could that be a reason? It's been affecting my Civ4 game and Marble Blast Gold as well.

I'm using a Dell Inspiron 1501, Vista Home Premium, 2Gb RAM, AMD Turion 64 x2, ATI Xpress 1150 display card. I started using this laptop since June 2007.

Is there anyway I can fix this? Thanks.

 

Does this happen all the time or just in certain apps?

 

Happened recently. Previously, it wasn't like this. And it happens seemingly in applications that require some type of 3d rendering or something. I'm not very familiar with the name of 'thing' involved. Could Gunbound be a source of the problem?

Here's a screenshot from Marble Blast Gold:

Obviously, the blurred stuff are supposed to be words.

Here's another one from Mahjong Titans, in the Vista Games:

Weirdly, when I hover my mouse over "Crab", the picture becomes clear. And when I hover my mouse over "Fortress", it gets the effect that "Turtle" gets.

 

Try removing your old video driver, and installing a new one. If that doesn't do it, I suppose you could try reinstalling Windows, but you might as well just send in the laptop for service. It's probably hardware at that point.

 

You should try uninstalling MBG and MT and see what happens

 

But I've never had problems with the hardware before. And the problem arose before MBG was installed.

Could a hardware overheat cause this?

 

Overheating can cause this effect. I've seen it with a desktop machine when a fan has got choked with dust on a graphics card. A good clean out won't hurt if possible.

*edit, just a quick thought. Did GunBound install DirectX 8 when the installation ran? If so try downloading and running the standalone DirectX 10 installer. (the standalone installer often works better than the one which checks your current version then updates if necessary)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...0C-5E44-4864-93CD-464EF59DA050&displaylang=en <--{full DirectX 10 download)

 

How would I clean the fan of my Inspiron 1501?

 

you could use canned air to clean around your keyboard as that is where the air intake is for most laptops. Then you could use a vacuum cleaner hose on the outgoing air vents to try suck any dust out, if your vac is high powered I'd try it on a low setting to start with and try use a cotton bud to hold the fan still if you need to. If you can remove the fan cover then just use a cotton bud to wipe of the dust from the fan blades.

If you want to give it a really good clean out here's some links to the service manual:
http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?s=gen&c=us&l=en&cs=&k=service+manual+1501&cat=sup

I've had a flick through a few pages and it is very detailed and doesn't look too complicated. I hope this helps!

( http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1501/en/sm_en/fans.htm <-- removing a fan page, which would also help you get at it for cleaning)