Garbled Text -- is this a video chip (on the Mobo) problem?

This forum is the closest I could find for the problem my computer is experiencing.

I'm just using the video on my computer's motherboard, it's good enough for my purposes.

I've been putting up with an annoying problem that suddenly appeared a couple of months ago. Certain sized text -- a bit smaller than the text that is appearing as I type here -- gets garbled on my screen. It can appear anywhere where text of that size is displayed on the screen, like if I'm at a forum reading and responding.

I have two monitors hooked up to my computer, and the garbled text appears on both screens so I know this isn't an issue with the monitor.

Here's a pic I captured from the screen of what it looks like:



I can make it disappear by "wiping" my mouse across it, but often it just gets pushed somewhere else. Sometimes it will completely disappear. Its behavior really seems random.

I'm really not looking forward to this if the video chip is going out. I don't really have room in that box for a video card, so I'm hoping it might be something else, like a software problme. I guess this is why I haven't gone ahead and installed a video card.

I have a lot of respect for the depth of knowledge that people who frequent the 7 forums have. So I'm hopeful that one of the wise members here will be able to identify the problem.

Have you tried upgrading your on-board display drivers? also try installing the DirectX 9 Redist (June 2010). As far as I think this is not the problem with the hardware but it's a software problem as you mention that you can make it disappear by wiping your mouse across the text. Otherwise if it was a hardware related issue then the system might've get hanged as soon as the garbage display appears at random times or showed some BSOD's.

I would suggest you remove your VGA drivers first by uninstalling them and restart your windows again and download and install latest drivers specifically for your motherboard on-board vga and let us know again.

Hi Boogieboy, thanks for your reply. I'll give your suggestions a try, then report back. It would be nice if it were just drivers that become corrupted.