Solved Weird Artifacts on Primary Monitor

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Early yesterday, I noticed some strange artifacts—multiple little horizontal lines running perpendicular to a horizontal line—on the desktop on my primary monitor only. They also appear in some programs when running on that monitor. I tried to take a screen shot of them but, even though they showed in the screen shot before saving, after saving the miserable little buggers disappeared so I had to resort to using a camera. In the first shot, you see some of them attached to the left vertical edge of the right hand sticky note.



Here you can see them attached to the left edge of the two center folders.



Here the little buggers have attached themselves to the left side of some letters in the text.



I've tried rebooting the PC and restoring from an image taken a week ago; no joy. Anyone have an idea what is causing this and what I can do to fix it?

 

[Computer0304]

Does it appear if you use another monitor as primary?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

No. I can switch my main display to monitor two and three and the artifacts go away but if I open a window on monitor 1, the artifacts are there.

 

[Computer0304]

Try switching the video cable around with another monitor then.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Try switching the video cable around with another monitor then.

And then the other monitor would get the artifacts? Besides, that particular monitor has to be run through an HDMI splitter so it is cloned to my TV. Curiously enough, the TV isn't showing the artifacts.

Edit: It apparently was the powered splitter. I rebooted it by killing the power and repowering it , after which the artifacts went bye-bye. I'm going to reboot the computer in a while—MBAM is running a full scan right now—and see if the artifacts stay gone.

Additional edit: It was the splitter. I just rebooted the computer and everything is still working just fine. Thanks for reminding me (albeit unintentionally) that there was splitter in the equation.

 

[Computer0304]

Well, you're welcome.