Weird video problem....

[Zadillo]

Hi all,

I hope this problem makes sense. I have been having a problem for the past month or so where every now and then, the video resolution of my computer will basically just blow up (it essentially looks like the screen has been zoomed in tremendously, and the video appears interlaced, and is focused just on the upper left-hand corner of the screen.

It seems like most often this seems to happen during video tasks, such as opening a video to play, or opening a folder in Windows that includes video files that it tries to generate thumbnails for. However, every now and then it will also seem to happen completely at random (i.e. I'll be in the middle of writing an e-mail or something and it will happen).

However, given the fact that it seems to mostly happen when I'm doing something related to video files, I am pretty confident that is the problem...... the trick is, I don't know exactly what it might be.

In terms of my technical hardware, I'm using a GeForce 6800GT with the latest forceware drivers (currently the ones that were included in the BF2 demo). I'm using an MSI K8T motherboard with an Athlon 64 3400+, and I have 1GB RAM.

When this problem does occur, I'm normally able to ctrl-alt-delete, which takes me to that "Windows Security" window and seems to properly put the video back into the resolution I was running at before (1024x768).

I've installed some standard codec packs, like the Matroska Pack - Lazy Man's MKV and the Xvid MPEG-4 Video Codec. I am pretty sure I might have installed one of the other main codec packs like the Nimo codec pack (or however it's spelled), but I'm not sure if they're still active or not (I assume at least a normal DivX codec is in there somewhere), but they don't show up in Add/Remove programs.

Does anyone have any advice or ideas on how to figure out exactly what's causing this, or the best way to get it resolved?

Thanks,

-Zadillo

 

[Zadillo]

Just as an update, I decided to go ahead and uninstall the Xvid MPEG-4 decoder that showed up in add/remove programs, as well as the "lazy man's mkv" package. I then did an install of the k-lite full codec pack. However, I think I might have screwed something up..... my videos play, but everything is VERY bright and washed out (like the contrast was boosted up to be almost completely white or something). I'm trying to uninstall and reinstall now.

 

[Zadillo]

OK...... I think I might have really screwed things up now. I uninstaleld the K-Lite Codec Pack, restarted, installed the K-Lite Codec Pack again, and there's no change. Now I'm getting this washed out superwhite video on any video playback (mpegs, avi's, divx, etc.). It seems to be a problem with any player (BSplayer, zoomplayer, nero showtime, etc.).

Does anyone have any ideas? This is a different problem, I guess. I also installed the new ForceWare drivers, but I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not.

 

[Zadillo]

Sorry, one more follow-up. First, it occurs to me that the previous terminology I used might not be correct. I think maybe what I'm seeing now is that every video seems overly saturated (although it seems like all the videos are also very white and washed out).

For what it's worth, it seems like this is only affecting video files that I playback. I tried launching BF2 to see how that went, and the videos that play at the beginning (the company logo stuff) displayed fine.

Anyone have any ideas? Any help would be tremendously appreciated.

 

[Zadillo]

Sorry, one last update. I decided to restore back to a restore point from yesterday, so I'm back to square one. I don't want to mess around with anything else at this point after the odd video problems I experienced.

If anyone can help me out, I would appreciate it.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Every now and then, my monitor does the "zoom" thing for a moment, then reverts to normal. Not having changed cards, drivers, or codecs, I assumed it was a failing in the monitor.

 

[Zadillo]

Is that possible, for the monitor itself to be at fault? Any way to check for sure? I'm using an NEC MultiSync FE791SB 17 inch CRT. I was thinking it was software just because it does seem to generally happen only when doing something involving a video file, and it is "fixable" by ctrl-alt-deleting.

 

[Tu13erhead]

You could try it in another computer. I have a feeling that that's not the problem however.

Download Driver Cleaner from http://www.driverheaven.net/ and follow the directions in the ReadMe EXACTLY, then install 77.72 if you have not (or reinstall them).

Also, I'd check Display Properties>Settings tab>Advanced>GeForce 6800GT>Temperature and see what you're running at.

Finally, in BIOS, make sure your AGP aperture matches that of your video card's RAM size.

 

[Zadillo]

Thanks, I'll check those things out. Do you think this sounds like a video driver problem, or possibly a problem with the GPU (I did install an Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer 5 on it, although I think the temps on the GPU are still around 50 degrees celsius even with it on it), and not a codec problem?