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#1 2010-09-20 15:35:38

yabasta
Member
Registered: 2010-05-01
Posts: 167

strange lines across my screen

hi smile
not really sure where to start with this one. can't really recall when it started, though i do remember it's gradually gotten worse. at first lines would occur now and then, only in small areas of my screen. now it happens every time i have the computer on. and covers nearly all my screen. here's what i'm talking about (clickable thumbnail by the way) :

th_screen.jpg

the lines don't appear anywhere on any terminals i have open, and they don't appear in playing video. they will occur over still pictures, all areas of program windows. at first i thought maybe they were a porblem related to conky being set to the screen, but i tried without conky running and the lines reappeared. it's always these red dashy lines by the way. i've also tried using various different gtk themes to no avail.
now for some details, i use :
openbox 3.4.11.2-1
nvidia-173xx 173.14.27-3 and nvidia-1733xx-utils 173.14.27-1
gtk2 2.20.1-2, though i do have gtk1 installed as well
umm, i know this is porbably far from being a comprehensive list of whats needed info-wise, not really sure what else to add.
hardware wise i'm using a nvidia 256 mb geforce 7300 and i think it's an SE, i do know its shared memory architecture on it, taking ram from main memory if needed. yea i know, its a crappy card. but it has worked fine with arch linux, debian, suse, fedora, and xp. thats all the info i can think of right now, i'd appreciate and suggestions or ideas? thanks for taking the time to read this rather long post

Last edited by yabasta (2010-09-20 15:39:16)

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#2 2010-09-20 15:44:15

lagagnon
Member
From: an Island in the Pacific...
Registered: 2009-12-10
Posts: 1,087
Website

Re: strange lines across my screen

Have you tied running a Live Linux CD (of any type) and stressing the graphics card? Do you get the same effect with a Live CD? If yes, then you have a hardware fault (obviously with the graphics chip). Try that first. Secondly are you sure that the 173 driver is the right one for that chip? Lastly, please use correct punctuation with your sentences. Without it your post is difficult to read and you may not get many people bothering to read through the entire thing (just a suggestion for the future)....


Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.

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#3 2010-09-20 16:43:40

yabasta
Member
Registered: 2010-05-01
Posts: 167

Re: strange lines across my screen

correct punctuation? jesus

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#4 2010-09-20 17:38:03

yabasta
Member
Registered: 2010-05-01
Posts: 167

Re: strange lines across my screen

well, i tried a live cd, a couple in fact, and they both worked fine. tht is to say that there were no red lines running across my screen. so i think i can rule out a hardware fault. i'm not entirely certain whether i'm using the corect driver or not. the beginners install guide on the arch wiki says :

1. nvidia-96xx slightly newer cards up to the GF 4.
2. nvidia-173xx Geforce FX series cards
3. nvidia newest GPUs after the GF FX

i'm not sure if my card came after the geforce fx cards or not. if i do have to install the third opeion there, the nvidia driver, would it simply be a matter of uninstalling one driver and installing the other?

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#5 2010-09-20 19:17:16

Knute
Member
From: Minot, ND
Registered: 2009-03-17
Posts: 604

Re: strange lines across my screen

After a quick tour of nvidia's site it would appear that the  256.53 version would be appropriate for your card.

The arch package is simply entitled nvidia btw.

Oh yeah to uninstall your old version simply use: pacman -Rd nvida-173...   Just put in all of your nvidia packages that are the 173 versions.  Then issue: pacman -S nvidia and you should be set after you restart X that is. smile
HTH

Last edited by Knute (2010-09-20 19:21:03)


Knute

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#6 2010-09-20 20:16:25

yabasta
Member
Registered: 2010-05-01
Posts: 167

Re: strange lines across my screen

thanks knute. i did as you suggested, removed nvidia-173xx, nvidia-173xx-utils, then installed nvdiai and nvidia-utils. all seemed to be going well until i fired up midori. then the lines appeared again. but only within the confines of the midori window. doesnt seem to be affecting other program windows right now, hmm. not sure where to go with this now..

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#7 2010-09-21 21:20:06

Knute
Member
From: Minot, ND
Registered: 2009-03-17
Posts: 604

Re: strange lines across my screen

Have you played with your nvidia-settings?  Maybe there's something in there.

Also, with the nvidia card, you have to load the settings on startup or else they won't load.  All you have to do is add nvidia-settings -l to your startup scripts.

I have mine in my .xinitrc file.


Knute

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#8 2010-09-23 09:05:13

yabasta
Member
Registered: 2010-05-01
Posts: 167

Re: strange lines across my screen

sorry for the late response, been working. hmm knute, i've never had to load nvidia-settings at startup before. and i really wouldn't know where to begin with playing with my nvidia-settings settings. it's set up as twinview as i'm using two monitors. in x server xvideo settings syncing to Vblank for 'video texture adaptor' is checked. no antialiasing settings, anisotropic or texture sharpening are selected. opengl settings 'allow flipping' is selected in the perfomance setting. image settings for opengl are set to performance. thanks for your suggestions by the way

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#9 2010-09-23 10:54:12

Gusar
Member
Registered: 2009-08-25
Posts: 3,605

Re: strange lines across my screen

Did the livecd use the nvidia driver? Probably not. So you can't rule out hardware failure, and in fact this looks exactly like hardware failure. Started like this with my laptop. Then it got worse. Then for a year or so I could only use the machine with the graphic card forced into the lowest performance mode. Now it doesn't work at all with the nvidia driver anymore.

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#10 2010-09-23 10:56:01

eldragon
Member
From: Buenos Aires
Registered: 2008-11-18
Posts: 1,029

Re: strange lines across my screen

try another monitor. all bets on the screen at fault.

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#11 2010-09-23 15:52:56

yabasta
Member
Registered: 2010-05-01
Posts: 167

Re: strange lines across my screen

@Gusar umm, i hadn't thought about whetehr the livecd was using that driver. i'd better check
@eldragon no, i get the lines across both (different) monitors so it can't be that. unless both monitors have decided to f%$k up in the same way at the same time

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#12 2010-09-23 16:07:14

.:B:.
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2006-11-26
Posts: 5,819
Website

Re: strange lines across my screen

This is probably a hardware issue, nothing to do with your desktop environment. Moving.


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#13 2010-09-23 20:04:09

kagerato
Member
Registered: 2007-09-10
Posts: 45
Website

Re: strange lines across my screen

Some thoughts...

1.) Do you have another video card you can test in that machine, yabasta?
2.) Try testing the vesa driver in X.org .  That will help you figure out whether it's the driver or the video card itself.
3.) You're running a dual screen config?  Does this problem still occur even if you use only one monitor with the same video card?

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#14 2010-09-23 20:42:29

lilsirecho
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Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: strange lines across my screen

Perhaps it is your power supply........................


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#15 2010-09-24 16:46:44

yabasta
Member
Registered: 2010-05-01
Posts: 167

Re: strange lines across my screen

@ kagerato
    no, the only other card i have on this is the onbard card.
    not sure what you mean about the vesa driver, i already have ' xf86-video-vesa 2.3.0-2 ' installed.
    and yes i'm using twinview. the weirdest thing has just happened. i disabled one of the monitors in nvidia-settings, saved the xorg.conf file, and logged out and back in to X with the one monitor. after doing this i couldnt repeat the lines no matter what i tried. so nw i've re-enabled the second monitor in twinview, saved xorg again and logged out and back into X again. now with both monitors up i can't seem to reproduce the lines at all. been up for over an hour now and still counting......

i'll see what happens. the lines usually only take a couple of minutes to appear, weird.

-EDIT-

spoke too soon. i think i'll have to put up with this until i've saved enough pennies for a new gfx card.

Last edited by yabasta (2010-09-24 16:58:01)

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