New
#1
Win7/Vista Intel Mobile 4 Distortion/Pixelation Issues
We're having some trouble on one Dell Latitude E6400 laptop w/ a Mobile Intel 4 Series Express video card. Under Vista x86 and a fresh install of Windows 7 x86 the user often gets video card distortion. When I was installing Win7 Professionl x86 on this system at my desk w/o a docking station (port replicator) nor an external monitor I did not experience any issues at all. However, once I connected it to the docking station at the users desk, along with a 1680x1050 Dell 22" monitor, the distortion/pixelation issues immediately starts. This occured under Vista as well, and according to the user when he works from home w/o a docking station or external monitor it also occured under Vista (not sure why I didn't see it, perhaps it hadn't heated up enough yet...?)
Anyways, the problem is the same as this user here:
Vista x64 display distortion/pixelation problem - Vista Forums
Our problem can be seen attached in error.jpg (this is a regular print screen screen capture). It is the same issue as the user above that was never resolved.
My guess is that it is simply a failing internal intel video card (which would require a motherboard replacement) but I want to get some other experts opinions before I try to convince Dell that this is the issue.
I have tried different drivers (from Dell, or a newer version straight from the Microsoft Driver Catalog that is downloaded straight from MS when you right click and update the driver (letting it search online). Neither has helped. It is definitely wayyyyy worse under Win7 than it was under Vista (under Vista it was tolerable, whenever it happened you could just minimize and bring the window back and it would usually fix it).
Disabling Aero fixes the problem completely (the user now has Aero turned off for the past few hours without issues). Of course, Aero stresses the video card quite a bit, which might result in issues, without Aero it would not be stressed so it does not have this problem when Aero is turned off.
What I can't explain is why a regular windows print screen (screen shot) picks up these errors. If it's a video card issue, shouldn't it just APPEAR to be messed up, but Windows should NOT pick up the distortion in a screen shot, right?
Arrrggghhh, definitely a strange problem. I couldn't find any other people with similar or the same issue, although many months ago I recall coming across the same problem for someone else on a forum somewhere... perhaps I'm just searching by the wrong keywords this time around.. if anyone else can find anything in google on this let me know...