Subtle Horizontal Lines

E

Exicuton

Posts: 11   +0
Hi,

My current setup is:
ASRock 960GM/U3S3 FX
Gigabyte Nvidia Geforce GT640 (2GB-DDR3
AMD Phenom II X4 965 (3.4Ghz
Kingston HyperX 8GB DDR3 - 1600 CL9
WD Blue WD10EZEX
Monitor is an old BenQ monitor (FP222Wa) with VGA only.

Now this setup is my current one (not the best), which is having the problems of subtle horizontal lines/stripes. I changed my mobo a few days ago (which is one thing I'm bad at), but it seems to work fine. Only problem is those horizontal lines. Could it be a voltage issue? This mobo has a lot of overclocking options in the BIOS, and I don't know if it has changed anything by default.

But yea, basically my GFX worked fine with my previous (very old) mobo and is now experiencing these horizontal lines upon installation of new mobo. I have updated drivers for all my stuff.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

- David
 
David - are you running at the monitor's native resolution and refresh rate? I've seen those lines one some of the overclockable monitors as you bump the refresh up.
 
JC713 said:
Can you explain the horizontal lines?

Try updating the BIOS and tell me if that helps.
Click to expand...
Well, the horizontal lines are mostly visible on solid colors such as white and grey/dark grey. They appear as a sort of very very light shade of grey and either run up or down the screen (not sure since they appear and disappear sometimes). They're not very thick, ½ cm at best.

I just looked at my BIOS version, and it says I have P1.20 from 21-05-2012. Looking at their website there is a 1.30 available, but it only fixes a problem with Windows 8. Their 1.20 version is from September though, so I'll install it for good measure, but unlikely that it'll change anything.
Edit: It reverted the update, so it's likely for Win8 only.


LNCPapa said:
David - are you running at the monitor's native resolution and refresh rate? I've seen those lines one some of the overclockable monitors as you bump the refresh up.
Click to expand...

My resolution is 1680x1050 and refresh rate is 60Hz, both of them native (can't change the refresh rate either).
 
I am not really an expert with monitors, so maybe someone else can offer some insight. I came to this thread thinking it was artifacting, but from your description, it does not seem so.

Try this (it will probably not change anything, but it is worth a try):
1) Download the latest driver from here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win8-win7-winvista-64bit-320.49-whql-driver.html
2) Open the installer
3) Choose the option to do a "Custom Install".
3) Click the box that says "Clean Install".
4) Proceed with the installation.

That will take the GPU drivers out of the issue if the problem still occurs.
 
JC713 said:
I am not really an expert with monitors, so maybe someone else can offer some insight. I came to this thread thinking it was artifacting, but from your description, it does not seem so.

Try this (it will probably not change anything, but it is worth a try):
1) Download the latest driver from here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win8-win7-winvista-64bit-320.49-whql-driver.html
2) Open the installer
3) Choose the option to do a "Custom Install".
3) Click the box that says "Clean Install".
4) Proceed with the installation.

That will take the GPU drivers out of the issue if the problem still occurs.
Click to expand...


It's okay, I just appreciate that you try to help.
Unfortunately it's still the same. I even wiped the drivers completely beforehand to make sure it was a clean install.

I just can't pin point what exactly could cause them.. I can look at the background gradient on this site for 5 minutes and get completely different results every time. Sometimes the lines/waves are visible all the time for a minute straight, other times they don't show at all for almost the entire time.
Forgot to say in the main post that I did look through all of the other threads with similar issues, but none of them had direct correlation with my problem and none of their fixes applied to me, sadly.
 
Have you tried re-seating the card? If its started with the new motherboard, it maybe a compatibility issue :S Or it could be a faulty graphics card...
 
stonarda said:
Have you tried re-seating the card? If its started with the new motherboard, it maybe a compatibility issue :S Or it could be a faulty graphics card...
Click to expand...


It's the exact same graphics card that I used in my old mobo. My old one was PCI x16, this is PCI 2.0 x16, the card is 3.0, so if anything this should work better with it. Another reason why it makes no sense D: And yes I have had it out to see if it was placed in the slot correctly, just to make sure. Gaming wise the card works perfectly fine, if not better than before (only problem being those stripes). And it's not a major problem at all, but definitely something I'd like to fix if possible.
 
stonarda said:
Have you tried it with a different monitor?
Click to expand...

One of the few things I haven't tried. Mainly because it's the same GFX as before, and the same monitor as before. Wouldn't make sense if there was a difference. That being said, if there would be a difference it would probably be because the other monitor perhaps used DVI instead of VGA, and I don't have a monitor available with DVI.
I've thought about buying a DVI monitor anyways, so I might do that by the end of the month. But yea I can't understand why that would fix something like that, in this case at least.
 
fimbles said:
Do you get horizontal stripes on your bios screen? or just in windows?
Click to expand...

Just went into BIOS to check, and they do appear there as well. Luckily my BIOS is grey so they're easier to see. This is such a mystery to me.. Thanks for everyone's help so far, I appreciate it.
 
If its showing in bios before windows has even started its probably a hardware issue.

Double check your motherboard wiring for any loose cables.
 
fimbles said:
If its showing in bios before windows has even started its probably a hardware issue.

Double check your motherboard wiring for any loose cables.
Click to expand...

Well I don't have a whole lot of cables in my mobo, so from what I can tell all of them are placed firmly. At this point I'm hoping it's a monitor issue rather than hardware, but I really don't know.
 
I hope its the least expensive problem too :)

As you say, the final test will be to try another monitor. After that I would start to look for any bad grounds/earths that may be causing interference.

Because the artifacts are appearing in bios shows this is not a driver or conflict error in windows.

Reset your bios to optimal defaults.

Also try taking a screenshot of the problem and post it here please.

If nothing helps, RMA the mobo.
 
fimbles said:
After that I would start to look for any bad grounds/earths that may be causing interference.
Click to expand...
Sorry I have no idea what this means, can you explain?
fimbles said:
Reset your bios to optimal defaults.

Also try taking a screenshot of the problem and post it here please.
Click to expand...

I would love to take a screenshot of it, but the lines aren't visible in images. And I definitely can't catch it from a camera. But what I can do is show you what it looks like with the help of photoshop.. Or at least close to what I'm seeing.
tAxTNqR.jpg

If you can imagine that those lines are 1:1 and this is a portion of my screen, it's pretty accurate. Also imagine that the lines are sort of a white distortion instead of dark grey, but visible in the same way. They're a bit more subtle than demonstrated.
 
So I've had my new monitor for a few days and it seems to have fixed the problem, or at least made it a lot less noticeable. I still have no idea why or what caused it, but switching from VGA to DVI-D helped a lot. Might've been the cable or the monitor, but it seems weird either of those would die on the day I got a new mobo.

Thanks for everyone's help, very much appreciated.
 
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