Noise and bleeding in graphics

[Guest]

I have a problem. For some reason graphics in my PC gets corrupted. This effects almost only 2D graphics and only so called "photo-like" graphics (doesnt need to be digitized picture though but most errors in those). What ever high quality picture or video I try to watch, the picture is filled with "noise" ... I think thats the word for it. Also when watching a videopicture, no matter which format, colors also bleed.There is no problems with games - atleast not with the games I have tried (RtCW,Max Payne,Medal of Honor etc) also none of the windows backround pictures never gets any noise. None. Even when I use the photolike 32 bit ones. But just loading a web page with say advertisement with small picture in it (digitized photo pic) and the noise is there. Also loading any .avi .asf .mov or .divx file gives instant noise plus bleeding colors.

Here is some info about my system :
FIC AZ31 OEM version motherboard (with onboard VIA AC'97 Audio Controller (WDM)
(VIA Technologies Inc VT8363/5 KT133/KM133 System Controller)
Award Software International, Inc. Version:6.00 PG
BIOS ID:08/27/2001-VT8363-VT686A-6A6LMF0AC-00
800Mhz Athlon M4 (Thunderbird) 650-1.4G 1.7-1.8V
Front Side Bus Speed:2x 100MHz (200MHz data rate)
256 Kingston pc133 memory
Ati Radeon 7200 64Mb agp
Realtek RTL8139/810X Family Fast Ethernet NIC #2
Microsoft Windows 2002 XP Professional Workstation Version 5.01.2600

AGP Bus Version:2.00
Speed:66MHz
Current Data Transfer Rate:4x 66MHz (264MHz data rate)
Side Band Enabled:Yes
Fast-Writes Enabled:No
Aperture Size:64MB

Now before you go all blaming the videocard I have to tell that the problem first occurred with Gefore2 MX card (agp) and I have also tried TNT2 PCI card with same corrupted results. I have tried all available drivers beta and official, reinstalled windows XP, reinstalled DirectX 8.1, reinstalled 4in1 4.37 drivers. Tried Georges VIA patches (v0.19).Tried different monitor.Plyed with bios memory settings (cannot do much there though) disabled onboard sound, disabled usb, disabled serial port and probably tried something else also...

Any ideas? any suggestions? all answers welcome.

Andy

 

[phsstpok]

Try changing the AGP Drive Value in your BIOS. (Take note of the default value before making changes. It should be DA). Change it <b>only to higher values</b> never lower values. For nVidia cards try EA first and FF second. If it doesn't help go back to default. (The numbers are in hexidecimal, 0-9,A-F. CF is one smaller than D0, for example. Take heed changing these numbers. Going smaller than default <b>can make your video unusuable, permanently</b>). Read more about this at <A HREF="http://www.geforcefaq.com" target="_new">www.geforcefaq.com</A>.

Update:

That is not quite what I meant. (This what happens when one rushes). I should have stated that the AGP driving value is really two control values, P and N (see my other post). Don't lower these values below default. Don't lower the first value below the default of "D" and don't lower the second value below the default of "A"

<b>We are all beta testers!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 03/10/02 02:32 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply Phsstpok.
I have to try that one - althought I have the same problems with PCI videocard sigh!

Anyway,I heard some new information: that older AMD processors K5,K6 and early K7's used to have similar troubles with JPEG pictures and such - the ones I am having now.

Has anyone heard/read about this thing? I'd like to get more information before buying a new processor ...

Again, all answers are highly appreciated!

Andy.

 

[phsstpok]

Forget what I said. Somehow I completely misinterpreted your problem.

Agp Drive Strength generally only effects video card stability. Some visual problems can be corrected by changing the value. However the problems seen are usually with 3D graphics. When they occur in 2D graphics (rare) everything is affected, the desktop, pictures, text, etc, altough maybe not at all times. I don't think is the kind of thing you are seeing. Your problems sound too specific. I'm not sure how to go about solving your problem. It almost sounds like some low-level codec is corrupted. If you can identify a specific picture file with which you are having a problem, try using a different application to view it. Don't use Internet explorer or a word processor. Try something like Paintshop Pro, or a more elaborite picture editing program. They won't rely on viewer codecs because those programs must edit picture files.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[bluzbrother]

If I were you I would seriously have reservations about messing with the drive strength for your AGP. Plus it's important to know what those values mean.

Your values for HEX are wrong phsstpok...the counting system is made up of 16 characters (0-F)per digit...as opposed to a decimal system which consists of 10 (0-9). The values go as follows (keep in note for changing AGP value):
00,01...09,0A,0B,0C,0D,0E,0F,10,11...
CF,D0,D1...D9 comes before DA.

Just a little lesson on Hex for you. Since hex is easy to use in translating bytes it is used with computers. If you notice 16 values of hex times 16 values of hex in the second place holder equals a total of 256 digits... which is the amount of values you can have in a string of 8 bits. So one byte can easily be represented in a two digit hex value. By the way a one digit hex number is also called a nibble.

AOL-For people who like to pay extra for their SPAM

 

[phsstpok]

My appologies, that was a typographical error. (It has been corrected). The default AGP driving value on Via chipsets is DA, which I wrote in my other post. I simply retyped it instead of D0 by mistake.

As for hexadecimal, I do remember how it works. In fact, I'm old enough to remember Octal and using it to key in a binary bootstrap.

As for AGP drive value, it is indeed broken up into two nibbles (although, who uses this term these days). These two AGP drive "nibbles" are called P-Control and N-Control. They refer to settings for leading edge and trailing edge adjustments. I can't recall which controls what. I also never did learn whether this was a timing control or a electrical control. What I did learn, from several resources, www.geforcefaq.com, Visiontek support pages, and a few online articles, that sometimes it is necessary to increase these values, up from D and up from A. These are last resort fixes but they have been reported to correct video cards that won't POST, add stability while overclocking (this I know works), fix the problem of incomplete 3D rendering, and it fixes bleading (discovered bleading or worse can occur when the AGP drive value is decreased). The incomplete 3D rendering is bizzare and I have only seen it once. Part of image looks solid but part of it looks kind of like wire-frame.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Guest]

The "corruption" occurs basically in all programs which can show these "digital" images. Not in games. This is a secondary computer which I use fron time to time. I first noticed the problem when I wanted to look a divx film with mediplayer - it was full of noise. I thought it was just a player question and downloaded the latest player and codecs pack from www.divx.com but the problem still remained. Then I noticed that you could actually see the same "noise" in other places as well, like in web pages - just not as much as in "moving picures". Games and things like office applications are uneffected for some reason.
Tweaking with drivers, agp speeds or hardware acceleration has no effect what so ever. None.

The comp works fine and scores great on benchmarks like 3DMark 2001.

I have never overclocked this comp or videocard.

Oh and I am sure the problem wasnt there say 2 weeks ago.

Beats me.

Thanks for answers though, really appreciated!

Andy

 

[phsstpok]

I haven't a clue. Sorry.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[peteb]

Does it look like the image was put through a cable tv scrambler, i.e a colourful snowstorm?

I had that once on a Socket t-bird chip, specifically for JPEGs (Gifs loaded) and changing the CPU fixed it. I put it down to a bad cpu.

-* <font color=red> !! S O L D !! </font color=red> *-
To the gentleman in the pink Tutu

 

[peartree]

Have you considered that it might be something as simple as having set your default video resolution at 256 colors and trying to display 65k+ "photo-like" pictures? Obviously, games would reset your video (temporarily) to whatever color depth they need and then it would go right back to looking horrible.

 

[Guest]

Heh its nothing that simple as wrong colordepth - I actually wish it would be. It probably is something with hardware.
I will try to "rebuild" my pc today if I have time. Install another fresh install of WinXP and all the drivers. Double check everything and if the problem remains - replace either the mobo or the athlon...

Its a bit hard to describe the effects - its not like cable scrambler - nothing that "massive"

Think a picture big as your screen. Now in your mind select say 10 to 20 areas where you replace pixel or two with totally wrong colored ones - now look the picture and you see what I would see with that big picture. So its not really stopping me to do what ever I do but just annoying.

"Moving pictures" - movies in other words are worse - thats only natural when you have picture after picture and every and each one of those have the same "wrong" pixels - and not always on the same place. The "places" sometimes also "bleed" when the picture schanges but the color on those "wrong" pixels doesn't follow fast enough.

Sometimes the pictures are more corrupted and sometimes less.

Well, next time I post - I'll post the answer to my problems.

Thanks to all of you who took time to think this thing.

Cheers!

Andy

 

[Guest]

Finally can post an answer:

The processor

I swapped in a 1 Ghz thunderbird and all the errors in pictures and videos went a way.


Andy