Random crash/freeze with dual monitors

[Smiler]

Whenever I move my mouse along the bottom of my primary screen to my secondary screen, there is a chance of the mouse cursor glitching out and looking weird. When that happens, I would say there is a 50/50 chance of the cursor then turning into a square and soon after that my monitors turn solid colors and my computer freezes.

I have already tried moving the taskbar away from the area, and the problem still persists. I am using a Radeon HD 4670 graphics card, but I tested it with XP and it works fine. I tried the 9.9 and 9.8 drivers for the card, but the glitch still happens.

 

[H2SO4]

That sounds very hardware/driver-ish. Can you confirm whether it also happens if you go into "basevideo" mode?

BCDEDIT /SET VGA ON

You'll need to reboot at least once after running that command. (To go back to normal after you're done testing, use the same command with OFF on the end.)

 

[Smiler]

Do I just put that in the Start menu box? I tried that and nothing seems different after rebooting. I was still able to crash the computer as well.

 

[H2SO4]

Do I just put that in the Start menu box? I tried that and nothing seems different after rebooting. I was still able to crash the computer as well.

Open an elevated CMD prompt (right-click, run as admin), and run the command that way.

 

[Smiler]

Okay, it worked this time, but I can't use my second monitor. Is there a way to turn it on in this mode? If there isn't, I can't test anything.

 

[H2SO4]

Okay, it worked this time, but I can't use my second monitor. Is there a way to turn it on in this mode? If there isn't, I can't test anything.

If it worked in "basevideo", that strongly suggests a problem in your normal video driver. That's what we just tested - a different (low performance/high reliability) video driver that's built into the OS.

You shouldn't try to add more functionality to basevideo mode (it won't work anyway). Instead, I'd suggest focusing on finding a driver revision that works with your setup.

 

[Smiler]

No, I mean I booted into basevideo mode. That worked. I can't see if the problem is the driver or not since the crash happens when I move the mouse between monitors. I can't test it right now because I only have one monitor on.

 

[H2SO4]

No, I mean I booted into basevideo mode. That worked. I can't see if the problem is the driver or not since the crash happens when I move the mouse between monitors. I can't test it right now because I only have one monitor on.

Oh, right, gotcha. Still, it does prove that there aren't any no-go areas on your (primary) monitor with a different driver, so once again the card-specific driver becomes the main suspect.

Are you running any desktop "enhancers" perhaps? Ultramon, some type of 3rd-party desktop "extender", or anything like that?

 

[Smiler]

Actually, I was running Ultramon for a period of time. I turned it off to test whether it was causing the crash, but it did not happen for the few hours I had it off. This was before I found out what caused the crashes, though. I then switched to Displayfusion, but I never tested that.

I did try moving the taskbars to the top of the screen, but the mouse moving between screens at the bottom of the desktop still caused the crash. I'll switch back to the regular drivers and try causing the crash without Displayfusion on.

 

[Smiler]

But now I can't get my computer back to normal. I tried BCDEDIT /SET VGA OFF, but it doesn't seem to do anything. I still can't turn my second monitor back on.

Edit: Okay, so I did BCDEDIT /SET VGA ON OFF, and the resolution went back to the smallest setting. I still can't get everything back to normal though (Second monitor).

 

[H2SO4]

But now I can't get my computer back to normal. I tried BCDEDIT /SET VGA OFF, but it doesn't seem to do anything. I still can't turn my second monitor back on.

Did you reboot after running that command?

 

[Smiler]

Yes I did. Everything was still the same. I have no clue what to do now.

 

[H2SO4]

Yes I did. Everything was still the same. I have no clue what to do now.

Can you run BCDEDIT by itself and paste back the output please.

 

[Smiler]

Nevermind. After trying the command again everything is back to normal.

I'll start testing whether turning displayfusion off does anything to stop the crashing.

 

[Smiler]

I turned DisplayFusion off and tested moving the mouse between the screens, and it still crashed.

I restarted with DisplayFusion not starting on startup, and it still crashes.

I'll start trying to downgrade my drivers now. Since I already tried 9.8 and I'm on 9.9 now, I'll start with 9.7.

Edit: 9.7 still crashes.

Edit2: 9.4 crashes.

 

[Smiler]

Okay, I've tried drivers from 9.4 all the way to the 9.10 beta. None of them stop the crashes from happening. The crash doesn't happen every time, but it still happens when I don't expect it when I'm not trying to make my computer crash.

I'm out of ideas. Could my directx drivers be messed up? This did start after I played Crysis Warhead for the first time with this graphics card (my old one died), and Steam said that it was installing Directx, even though I had it fully upgraded at the time. I did try installing Directx through the program on Microsoft's website, but it doesn't find any new updates. It could have been a coincidence, but this crashing problem seemed to start after I played Crysis Warhead

 

[H2SO4]

Okay, I've tried drivers from 9.4 all the way to the 9.10 beta. None of them stop the crashes from happening. The crash doesn't happen every time, but it still happens when I don't expect it when I'm not trying to make my computer crash.

I'm out of ideas. Could my directx drivers be messed up? This did start after I played Crysis Warhead for the first time with this graphics card (my old one died), and Steam said that it was installing Directx, even though I had it fully upgraded at the time. I did try installing Directx through the program on Microsoft's website, but it doesn't find any new updates. It could have been a coincidence, but this crashing problem seemed to start after I played Crysis Warhead

If I understand correctly, it's not actually a "crash" - it's a lockup preceded by graphics artefacts? If it was a crash, it'd be somewhat easier to troubleshoot. Lockups are almost impossible to diagnose over a web forum. It usually comes down to just trial and error.

How did the old video card die exactly? Was it in any way linked to similar issues?

 

[Smiler]

The old graphics card was 2 years old, and it fried. It died while I was playing Battlefield 2. It usually ran at about 80C when I played games. It was a NVidia 8500GT, if that helps.

The one I have now idles at 44C and gets up to 60C when I am playing a game.

Okay, so what the crash is, is when I move the mouse from the 'show desktop' button on the taskbar to the right so the mouse cursor is on the bottom left corner of my second monitor, the cursor will suddenly have the top portion of the cursor repeated in a vertical line. If the computer doesn't lock up, the cursor will still change according to what's happening (if the loading circle pops up, there is just 5 tops of the circle stacked on top of each other). If I move the cursor back and forth between the screens, it will eventually go back to normal.

If the computer does lock up, the cursor will soon turn into a square that is usually a few different colors, and then each screen will turn a solid color. If I have music or a video playing, there might be some studdering still going, but the computer is mostly locked up. I can't get it to respond to keypresses or anything.

Nothing is overheating when this happens. This first started happening while I was using HW Monitor, but I have stopped using it after I figured out that this wasn't due to overheating.

Edit: This problem actually started happening about 4 days after I installed my new graphics card, and this didn't happen with my old one.

 

[karcheba]

Same problem

I am having literally the exact same problem. I recently upgraded to a second monitor running Windows Vista SP2 and Radeon HD 4870. If you have figured out what was causing the problem help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Smiler]

Posting again to say that I still have this problem. When the cursor goes from the bottom of one monitor to the other can make my computer crash.