mplayer + KDE4 screws nvidia video card (some times), windows does too

spupy · 2011-02-27 00:41:54

This seems the most appropriate sub-forum for my query. Sorry if I'm mistaken.

So I'm watching a video in mplayer and decide to increase the volume, so I hit the media key on the keyboard. KDE always displays a helpful OSD to inform me about the current volume.
The problem is that sometimes the popup really screws with mplayer. It also happens when KDE displays some other notifications at the system tray.

The result: sometimes mplayer get stuck, and I must "kill -9" it. No biggie.
Sometimes the whole screen gets really scrambled - around 50% of everything is random noise, which changes when the picture changes (such as mouse movement or windows appearing). Everything continues to run fine, but the distorted picture makes the computer unusable - restart is the only way.
VLC has no problems in the same situations.

Now, the strange thing is, the same thing started happening in Windows 7, more precisely in Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2010. At first the game runs fine, but recently I'm unable to finish 1 in 5 races because the exact same problem as with mplayer appears. There are other glitches, like randomly appearing superstructures made of rogue polygons. The other game I play at the moment (Amnesia) runs without problems. (although admittedly I haven't been playing it a lot, since it's scary.

The fact that the problem is somewhat OS-independent leads me to believe that maybe it's a hardware problem. I checked the temps of my nvidia 8600 - it runs at 60-65° C, which, as far as I can recall, has always been the norm for my video card. It's the first computer I've built, so it is within the real of possibility that I did not build it quite properly, but then again, this problem appears just now, more than 9 months after finishing the build.
Also, there is a lot of dust inside the tower, I haven't been at home a lot lately to clean it.
A perhaps related problem - the on-board ethernet port stopped working. It was deteriorating in the last weeks, but now it completely fails. It says there is no cable plugged in. (cable is ok) If this problem is related, the perhaps it's a faulty motherboard, but why does the problem appear only with mplayer and Need for Speed?

Gusar · 2011-02-27 11:10:30

Hmm, is your card affected by bumpgate? Better check that. That you have issues also in Windows makes be believe it's exactly the case.

spupy · 2011-02-27 13:59:28

Gusar wrote:

Hmm, is your card affected by bumpgate? Better check that. That you have issues also in Windows makes be believe it's exactly the case.

Seems to be possible. The model and the symptoms kind of match. I couldn't find an explanation on when does the problem occur, though.

Yesterday I updated the windows drivers and the game seemed to run fine. I will see if there are new nvidia drivers for linux and how they work out.

Hm, continue searching, I will.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-02-27 00:41:54

mplayer + KDE4 screws nvidia video card (some times), windows does too

#2 2011-02-27 11:10:30

Re: mplayer + KDE4 screws nvidia video card (some times), windows does too

#3 2011-02-27 13:59:28

Re: mplayer + KDE4 screws nvidia video card (some times), windows does too

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