Windows 7 Aero Screen Corruption (Annoying)

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Taiguy

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So this just started happening a week or so ago. Running Windows 7 x64 off of MSDN on a Lenovo R400 with the Intel Mobile 4 Series chipset. In a nutshell, as I'm going throughout the day doing work my screen gradually becomes more and more corrupted. Usually it starts around the title bar and borders, but when it gets really bad it can affect the text/picture content inside the window as well. Examples below:

excel_and_chrome.jpg


This is a chrome browser window on top of an excel spreadsheet. Notice that the translucent title bar has become banded, the min/max/close icons in the upper right are severely corrupted, and the window border is completely wonky. The excel spreadsheet has completely glitched out.

outlook_header.jpg


Another example showing in Outlook 2010 (beta). The title bar exhibits the same sort of banding and the min/max/close icons are also glitched out.

zune.jpg


Particularly striking is the zune gallery (v4.0) that shows corruption everywhere, and pretty severe to boot.

  • I've found that disabling aero, gets rid of any of these artifacts, but then everything looks bland.
  • If you cause the affected area to refresh, the artifacts disappear (but may reappear later).
  • Re-installed the latest video drivers from lenovo's website, no go.
  • The screen seems to degenerate over time. Everything will be completely clean looking. Then a few small glitches appear. Then they appear in another window. Then it takes over an entire window.
  • Microsoft products tend to "initiate" this glitching. Meaning the zune software almost always shows signs of corruption upon launching the software. Microsoft office will show it after a bit of use. Google Chrome and Photoshop will become "infected" by it soon enough as well.

Looking back to when these artifacts first started appearing it's "around the time" I installed
  • Avast Antivirus
  • Google Earth
  • Pidgin 2.6.4
  • Microsoft Lifecam (their webcam software)
  • Thunderbird 3.0 RC2
  • Thinkpad Bluetooth w/EDR software & drivers

I've been trying to systematically eliminate programs/services from startup but nothing seems to work so far.

Ideas anyone?

**UPDATE** - Solution found. Enabling the VT-d switch in the BIOS creates the problem with Windows 7 Aero Glass. I do a lot of work with VMs and turned it on along with VT-x. Do not turn on the VT-d switch to avoid this issue.
 
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Have you tested any games? The Zune client is DX 9 heavy as is Aero and I'm wondering if this is a hardware issue. A game benchmark might help determine the problem.
 
Looks similar to what I saw when my old Radeon 9800 pro was failing. Try different Video drivers, or another video card if you can.
 
I've ran into this on my tablet. I think it's a problem with the Intel drivers. You can solve it by killing dwm.exe (it'll automatically restart) or running "net stop uxsms" and "net start uxsms" from an elevated command prompt.
 
It could be the video driver, or it could be the card itself. If I had to guess I'd pick one of those two. I've seen something similar before and it turned out to be the graphics card itself. Obviously start simple and trouble-shoot your way up. Check your cables first, check your drivers next, etc. If none of that works, and you can, try a different graphics card.
 
Hello people, he has a Lenovo r400 - AKA a laptop. Not going to be trying a different video card :)

I bet it is a hardware issue. When you turn off Aero, you relieve the stress from the video card. Try a game and see what happens - my bet is you will get texture corruption.
 
I've seen this issue both with bad drivers and failing hardware, making it more difficult to track down. You said you tried the latest intel drivers from Lenovo's website, what driver version is that (it may be best to take a dispdiag or dxdiag and upload it)?

You may want to check windows update for better drivers, as it will often get newer drivers than the OEM.
 
Standpoint said:
Hello people, he has a Lenovo r400 - AKA a laptop. Not going to be trying a different video card :)

I bet it is a hardware issue. When you turn off Aero, you relieve the stress from the video card. Try a game and see what happens - my bet is you will get texture corruption.
Click to expand...

Correct. Playing Osmos I will get some texture corruption. Not a very demanding game (still a ton of fun and worth the $10 on STEAM).

To validate this theory I suppose running a 3D benchmark would stress the chipset out and induce artifacts. I'll try that and get back to you.
 
Ran prime95 for an hour. Impressed at how well the heatsink works in this laptop. It never topped over 48C. Occasional artifact around a window border, but it immediately corrected itself.

Ran 3DMark06 and despite it chugging along at 3 fps - it looked pretty crisp.

stopping the dwm and restarting it does indeed clear up the problem, but it comes back after a little bit.

here is my dxdiag dump

dxdiag.jpg


a simple outlook 2010 confirm box

outlook_confirm.jpg


and a complete failure of outlook

total_outlook_fail.jpg
 
In that dxdiag box, click "Save all information" then save as a text file. I need to see that in order to check your PNP ID.
 
All I can do is concurr, either it's the driver (That'd be your easiest to troubleshoot and fix- so I'd suggest chasing all options here first) or you're going to have to get with IBM to get the Mobo replaced.
 
Confirmed that it was a hardware issue. Just got my notebook replaced (kept the hard drive) and everything is running peachy keen now.:cool:
 
Congrats! Glad you got it fixed so quickly. This is the same laptop as the one with the problem?
 
How'd you take these images??? Camera?
They look like screen grabs which doesn't make sense...
 
Well obviously it was a hardware issue. So the software itself (Windows) is running fine... So a screen grab taken and posted online should actually look fine- we shouldn't be able to see those artifacts....
 
my guess would be that it's memory related and it was corrupting the screen buffer. a screen capture would accurately grab whatever was in the buffer.
 
TechieSooner said:
Well obviously it was a hardware issue. So the software itself (Windows) is running fine... So a screen grab taken and posted online should actually look fine- we shouldn't be able to see those artifacts....
Click to expand...
Very true for an issue with the screen, but if it is a hardware error with the video card/memory itself, the screen grab will be corrupted as well. It is one method of determining the area of failure in video issues, to take a screen shot and see if the corruption is present or not.
 
Taiguy said:
my guess would be that it's memory related and it was corrupting the screen buffer. a screen capture would accurately grab whatever was in the buffer.
Click to expand...
This. I suspect it's an issue with the Intel WDDM 1.1 drivers, as I was having no issues on my Tablet (Lenovo X200T, Intel 4500 Graphics) under Vista and have been under 7 since the Beta.
 
new theory. it came back.

but only after enabled VT-d in the BIOS (I use lots of VMs for work). Disabling the VT-d switch in the BIOS gets rid of the problem. guess I didn't need to swap out my hardware.
 
Now that IS strange. Might want to report that to Lenovo. I'll have to test that when I go home today.
 
Taiguy said:
new theory. it came back.

but only after enabled VT-d in the BIOS (I use lots of VMs for work). Disabling the VT-d switch in the BIOS gets rid of the problem. guess I didn't need to swap out my hardware.
Click to expand...

Are you 100% sure??? I mean, you said it takes awhile for it to produce itself (and you thought switching out the hardware fixed it at one point...)
 
best guess for right now.

the problem disappeared when I switched shells (physical laptop, minus the hard drive). this is still with the VT-d switch disabled in the BIOS. I remembered that it didn't come that way stock so I rebooted into the BIOS to turn it on. After another reboot into Windows, I noticed the problem after about a minute. It manifests very quickly after starting Zune or microsoft office. Rebooted back into BIOS, and turned off the VT-d switch. Left the VT switch on. Rebooted back into Windows. Been artifact free for the last few hours.
 
Hmmm....

That just seems really odd if that is indeed the case. But if it's true you have a good bugfix to report to IBM with... Maybe they'll send you a new laptop for the thanks. :D
 
TechieSooner said:
Hmmm....

That just seems really odd if that is indeed the case. But if it's true you have a good bugfix to report to IBM with... Maybe they'll send you a new laptop for the thanks. :D
Click to expand...

fyi. IBM sold their PC division (including the Thinkpad brand) to lenovo back in 2004;)
 
Taiguy said:
fyi. IBM sold their PC division (including the Thinkpad brand) to lenovo back in 2004;)
Click to expand...

IBM still holds a chunk of it, and Lenovo still sells IBM products... I didn't know they sold off most of it though.
 
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