Encountering this on a newly reformatted windows 7 PC.

[midmaxed]

Hello everyone.
I would like to consult here this problems which I have been encountering lately.
Firstly, here's my PC specs:

board: ASUS P5PKL AM SE
cpu: Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93ghz
ram: 2x2gb Kingston ddr2 800mhz (newly bought)
gpu: Radeon hd 6570 1gb ddr3 (newly bought)
psu: generic 600w (newly bought)
hdd: Seagate 1TB - os installed here (newly bought)
Seagate 2TB - (as backup for files)




I successfully installed windows 7, after that I installed first an anti virus, I was a previous ESET user, but upon looking at reviews I settled with Comodo Internet security. I then installed Tuneup Utilities 2012, then other various programs, firefox,Idm, my huge archive of old games.

I noticed that there would appear on the screen some distortions/blurry lines/runny lines from time to time. If I would try to reset the settings on the monitor itself, the lines would either get worse or simply reduce. I also tried to change the resolution in the AMD Catalyst control manager, and in the screen resolution setting, but it doesn't permanently solve my problem. I tried changing the refresh rate, but to no avail. What's also wierd is that these "lines/distortions" (sorry, don't know how to really classify them) only appear when I am on the desktop and doing simple tasks like browsing the web, playing windowed games like scrabble, pinball, etc. but whenever I would play full games like Stronghold, Red Alert 3, Need for Speed, etc. there seems to be no signs of the lines or distortions that are occurring. Sometimes these lines/distortions would occur on the borderlines of a window, sometimes on a specific side of the screen.. right now as I'm writing this there seems to be no distortions, (current setting is 60hz refresh rate) but when I change it to 75, the distortions would appear again. I hope you get what I am talking about..

What seems to be the problem? Hardware or software?
The video card has updated drivers, I tried doing system restores, I tried uninstalling the gpu driver and reinstalling again, removing the vga cord,
(I can't reformat again since my dvd drive's condition is getting worse, I was only lucky that my win7 install was successful.)

Please try to help me! Thanks a lot!

 

[kegobeer]

Did you install the drivers for your hardware manually (ie: from the manufacturer websites) or did you let Windows detect and install the drivers?

 

[midmaxed]

as I have done before, the windows installed the drivers automatically, except for the gpu driver which I have installed and downloaded on AMD's website.

 

[Maguscreed]

I would remove tune up utilities.
It's pretty much useless in windows 7 anyway. My experience thus far with tweak utils and windows 7 is that they cause a vast number more problems than they solve.

 

[Layback Bear]

I totally agree with maguscreed. Windows 7 doesn't want or need such programs.

 

[Maguscreed]

actually let me clarify that
I would undo all the changes that tune utils has made
...then I would remove it.

 

[gregrocker]

You chose exactly the programs which give the most reported problems with Win7:

Commodo is crapware that causes all kinds of problems only solved by uninstalling it. Use Microsoft Security Essentials with the Win7 firewall.

Tune Up Utilities is a tweaking suite which will mess up Win7 since it does not need or tolerate compound tweaking.

Use CCleaner and perhaps a good 3rd party defragger like Puran boot-time defrag is all you need.

 

[midmaxed]

friends,
I have done as you have said, I removed Comodo and replaced it with Microsoft Security Essentials. however, I have kept Tuneup Utilities as of the moment. No improvement has been happening yet, the same problem still occurs. When I'm on the desktop, those distortions/lines would still appear, but whenever I'm playing full games everything's running flawlessly regardless of resolution. (1440x900, or 1024x768)..

I also restored the bios settings to default, but nothing's still happened. I found there a menu that allows me to disable something with the gpu's physical settings, but I haven't tried that yet since things might get worse..

any more help please? Thanks a lot..

 

[Maguscreed]

At the end of the day it is in fact your call as to what to do with the util package. I would seriously consider the decision again though, you have about 70 years of combined tech experience telling you to dump it. I would actually undo whatever changes it has made before removing it too.

Sorry if you like the app but we really do just see nightmarish problems caused by those things with this version of windows.

 

[midmaxed]

ok, thanks. I'd follow your advice and remove Tuneup 2012, but how do I undo those changes tuneup has made? I only disabled some programs at startup, and as far as I could recall I've done it on "msconfig". other tasks that tuneup has done was to clean the registry.. will it be safe to remove it at that?

Right now, I'm playing Stronghold Crusader Extreme. whenever I press the windows button on the keyboard, I get back on the desktop and these distortions appear. when I go back to my game however, the monitor's display is perfectly good...

 

[Maguscreed]

Disabling aero theme would probably solve that little bit of artifact on the screen.
It would make windows look ugly though.

apparently unlike most good registry scanners and tweak tools tune up util doesn't even have a undo function. Apparently the only way to undo what it has done is a repair install or a system restore to a time before it was installed.

For now let's just hope removing it's components will help stabilize you.


A repair install is really starting to seem like the easiest fix here. Since it's a new installation the odds of losing any applications or data in the repair is pretty much zero.

One final thing.
Have you tried this?
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

 

[midmaxed]

Friends,
I've discovered just now, this scrabble game that I play, when it is in windowed mode, it's also affected by the wavy lines/distortions, but when I set it to full screen mode, it displays clearly!

is it safe to conclude that this problem of mine is software-related?

 

[Maguscreed]

Friends,
I've discovered just now, this scrabble game that I play, when it is in windowed mode, it's also affected by the wavy lines/distortions, but when I set it to full screen mode, it displays clearly!

is it safe to conclude that this problem of mine is software-related?

I'm still fairly convinced it was caused by something tuneup util did.
see my post above.

 

[midmaxed]

Thanks again Maguscreed and the others who helped, I forgot to +rep you.

Tuneup 2012 - I have already uninstalled it, rebooted my pc, yet the monitor's still the same. Before (Tuneup 2011) I used to disable hibernation, frequently remove system restore points, but I don't recall encountering problems.

In the AMD Catalyst settings, you could see there the resolutions, settings, etc. I thought that was conflicting with my pc's resolution, I removed it but it didn't make a difference so I placed it back again.

Am I running out of hope?

 

[Maguscreed]

Well let's run down the list of possible causes for your problem.
Driver
software
hardware
power supply
graphics card
motherboard

The real problem here is usually by this point we've at least narrowed things down and we don't seem to be making much progress with you here.
If you want to try a repair install to see if it will help it's pretty easy to do and will keep your data and installed programs. It just resets windows back to default.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

 

[1Bowtie]

One more thing you might try, go to Asus and get the drivers for your monitor and install them, then out the drivers for the video card and reinstall them after you install the monitor drivers.

 

[gregrocker]

You might try other recent drivers for the video card as well to see what happens, in addition to the monitor driver. Have you checked optional Windows Updates for newer drivers?

Since there's no way to undo the tweaks done by the tweaking suite, I would see if you have a System Restore point before you did them and use it now. If not, I personally would clean reinstall as the Repair Install will not roll back all settings.

Following the basic outline in Clean Reinstall Windows 7 Factory OEM to get a perfect reinstall will give you a baseline to work from that rules out the installation as problem. I would especially not change out any drivers given by installer and quickly updated by optional Windows Updates - only import those missing after several rounds of Updates. Then you can update your Display adapter if it is Standard VGA and still has the problem. Trying various Display adapters would be the first troubleshooting step with a baseline perfect reinstall.

 

[midmaxed]

friends,
while still on my current OS I tried to replace video card with my old 9400gt 512mb ddr2 (which while weaker, consumes more power).
The lines weren't that noticeable. now I can't find where i put my win7 installer, I decided to settle with Vista 32bit home premium.

This is what I'm using now, and the only programs that I installed are Microsoft Security Essentials + audio drivers, + amd drivers, ultraiso,winrar, + my games.
The lines still appear, although it seems that they have reduced. (still I'm observing it)
One thing that I have observed though, is that when I right click AMD Catalyst, it shows 2 Radeon HD 6570's, one is for the main display and another one is for the extended display, which I don't have... here:

Thanks a lot.hope you understand my post..

 

[gregrocker]

Vista?

The WIn7 installer downloads are in the Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 link I posted above. Too bad you didn't read it.

This time wait to see what drivers Windows Update provides to see if there is a video driver preferred by Win7 without the CCC bloatware that causes all kinds of problems. If not import only the driver and not the software package.

 

[midmaxed]

friends,
The problem I have been encountering seems to stem from either my video card or my monitor. running at 1440x900 seems to get worse by the day, because now even games I play are affected.
I tried lowering the resolution to 1280x1024, 1280x768, using ati catalyst and although the resolution became uglier (since 1440x900 is the native resolution), the lines that were appearing were significantly reduced, if not gone.

Now I'm on 1366x768 resolution, and no lines/very minimal lines so far.

To be really honest, my current OS, vista home premium 32bit, is a legit copy, while my previous windows 7 isn't..
So now I'm going to save up for a 7 64bit ultimate. (a legit one)

This problem was also a blessing in disguise since I was informed that programs like Tuneup Utilities conflict with Windows 7. I'd now use CCCleaner. Thanks a lot.