Strange Display Problems in Windows and Games, Plz Help

[UnInvincible]

I've got a refurbished 20" 2.4 GHz Aluminum iMac, 1 gig of RAM, and the Ati radeon hd 2600... well mobility xt or pro or whatever we've decided it is...
Anyways, I've installed windows xp sp2, updated it fully, and succesfully installed all the Boot Camp 2.0 Drivers, but i'm getting a very strange display problem if I leave windows on for a while, I'll attach some photos to explain. BTW: I had to take the photos with a digital camera because when I tried taking a screenshot it showed up normal when I rebooted... I don't know if that means anything or not.
I'm also getting strange graphical glithces in games like half-life 2 and Team Fortress 2, like strange colors on textures and my flashlight sometimes becomes a square pattern. I also got a BSOD message in GMod today, STOP: 0X0A, I have the whole message if someone could tell me how to track the number down in regedit or something. I've tried everything, like updating the drivers using both Mobilty Modifier and the omega drivers. I'm currently using the newest ones from AMD for the 2007 imacs, version 8.43. Anyone have any ideas???

P.S. I haven't noticed any problems in OSX, so i'm fairly sure it's not a hardware problem...

 

[UnInvincible]

Hmmm... No one has any ideas???
Could someone with the same iMac as me running Windows XP tell me how many monitors they see when they go into the device manager??? Is it normal to have 3 default monitors, a generic television, and a Plug and Play Monitor??? I'm just curious, i'm pretty sure it's some kind of driver problem...

 

[XianPalin]

A lot of times graphics glitches are heat, but yeah.. your icons look fine so it's kind of hard to tell.

 

[XianPalin]

Well nevermind, only the center of the screen is messed up, didn't see that at first. Could still be some sort of heat issue... run a program that looks at internal temperature and see if anything looks high.. or maybe play games for a while and boot into OS X quick and look at the temperatures.

One thing I've read some people do is use smcFanControl (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23049) in OS X to bump up their fan speed, and then boot into Windows (the fan speed apparently stays around on reboot, but it lost when you reboot) and the higher fan speeds help keep things cool for gaming. I dunno, see if that helps at all, but obviously could be a driver thing too.

The error doesn't bode well though - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/183169

Guess it depends on how many 0s you had - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314063

 

[UnInvincible]

I am pretty sure it's not heat, cuz it just does the crazy color thing at random times, not when it's under stress, like i've had me logged off and left it on for a night and when I woke up it was crazy colors, and it actually is screwed up on the sides, just not as bad... I'm pretty sure it's some driver error or something, anyone know any program that could check if i have any drivers on my computer that is screwing it up??? And i'm still wondering if Device manager shows 3 default monitors, 1 Generic Television, and 1 Plug-and-Play Monitor for everyone else...

 

[nigrunze]

In Device Manager, I have ATI RADEON HD 2600 XT listed under Display Adapters and Plug and Play Monitor listed under Monitors. No generic televisions or the like.

I think some of your drivers might be messed up or something like that. Try to reinstall the drivers from the Mac OS X Leopard disc and hopefully that helps.

 

[UnInvincible]

Hmm... I tried uninstalling the monitors from the Device Manager, but when i rebooted they just came back, so i disabled them and they're still disabled when i reboot, so i'll let it run tonight and see if it goes crazy again. I also installed smcFanControl in Mac OSX and i think when i rebooted the fans kept going, so hopefully that helps too, i checked PC Wizard 2008 and it said none of my fans are going at all, but I think it just can't read them or something cuz it's the iMac...
If this doesn't work I don't know what i'm gonna do, but my games have been acting better lately, i think they might have just gotten screwed up when I tried about a thousand different video card drivers...
O yeah, i've already tried reinstalling the Boot Camp drivers like a thousand times, i don't think they're the problem...

 

[iMac20]

Some replies and comments

Hi,

I just got my new iMac20 and I'm running the latest of everything. The computer is completely update on both Mac and WinXP platforms. Still there's the conflict (I'm guessing the graphics drivers are not up to date with the changing hardware) between the Mac and Win OS's...

I have 5! monitors as well in the hardware list, generic tv, plug and play monitor and the three "whatevers"... Have no idea to why!

My problem doesn't however show itself in the actual windows ambient. I have problems with some heavy 3D-programs and my AutoCad just doesn't run after the update to the 8.43 ATI driver for BootCamp Apple WinXP SP2.

Since there's some OpenGL settings that have to be adjusted for Acad to run I'm guessing I just have to change them...

However, I have strange display errors for on-screen comands in various software. I relate these errors to your in-game annomalies...

As soon as anyone of us comes to some kind of conclusion I hope we'll read about it here.

I realize I haven't posted anything that could help, not for now anyway. I just wanted everyone to know that you're not alone out there...

 

[UnInvincible]

Well, I woke up this morning after I disabled all but the Plug-and-Play monitor last night and it wasn't crazy colors, but it's lasted pretty long without doing it before so i'm not gonna say it's fixed, i'll leave it on throughout today and probably tonight and hope it doesn't get screwed up...
iMac20, I would try diabling the monitors like I did, it might not work but it's worth a try, and did u install ATI Catalyst Control Center? I'm just making stuff up but maybe you could try uninstalling that and see if your programs run better...

 

[UnInvincible]

Arg,
Everything was going fine... left windows on all day and it didn't go crazy, but I was just playing one of my HL2 mods and it did the crazy color thing, which is weird cuz i've only seen it do it actually in a program a few times, it's usually just when i have a window open like Internet Explorer or i'm just looking at the desktop...
Now i'm gonna go on a quest to find a way to permenently remove the extra monitor drivers i have and see if that works... google is my best friend

 

[iMac20]

Disable the monitors?

Thanks for the posts UnInvincible. I'll try to disable the other monitors, just don't wanna disable the one I'm actually using.

The answer to your question is "Yes, I've installed Catalyst Control Center" but now it is no longer to be found on my computer.

I'm gonna have a technician coming over today to have a look on my iMac because yesterday I called him and he told me there might have been a problem during the installation, that I didn't put the "Apple System Disk", the grey CD, in straight after installing Windows...

I don't know, it's just a mess everything. Just because I don't wanna have a PC at home.

Btw, hate M$...

 

[iMac20]

Monitors disabled

Hey,

I've disabled the monitors but my problems still remain. There's this awful bug in some 3D softwares I'm using, it just won't go away!

AutoCad is not even launching, can't get the settings right! Maybe it doesn't even matter since "Acad.exe" doesn't even show in the "Task Manager"...

I'm going crazy here, getting freakin' pissed actually! The technician is no where to be found but when he gets here I'm gonna let it rip... Rest assured!

Laters

 

[UnInvincible]

Hmm... Still haven't found anything,
I'm pretty sure the problem is somewhere in the monitor drivers, I still can't find any way to uninstall them, i've tried safe mode and anything else i could think of... My games seem to be showing more graphical glitches lately, but i'm gonna focus on this monitor problem first and see if reinstalling the games helps after i solve the weird color issue...
If anyone knows of a program or way to find the monitor drivers and how to remove them I would appreciate it greatly

 

[nigrunze]

You could always try the last resort. Reinstall Windows XP. I wouldn't want you to lose your HL2 stuff.

I've read about some issues that for some reason you get an error when reinstalling XP on Macs. Hopefully if you were to reinstall, you wouldn't end up with more problems. But in the case that a reinstall goes smoothly, let's hope that the driver big is fixed.

Have you contacted Apple about this?

 

[iMac20]

Hey UnInvincible.

I'm back from the weekend and so are the bugs on my screen!

I'd say, from reading your post, that the problem is not in your games since we have the same issues with our screens...

The driver must be completely *****ed up because the errors pop up everywhere be it games, applications or what not...

I'm guessing we just have to keep our eyes and ears open for any updates on the monitor and graphic drivers. What do you guys recon?

 

[UnInvincible]

...
So I erased my bootcamp partition, made a new one and then installed windows again, installed the bootcamp drivers, ran windows update a few times, downloaded DirectX, downloaded and installed the new ATI Bootcamp Drivers and then installed The Orange Box... And the graphical problems are still there!!! I still have 5 monitors in device manager as soon as I installed the Boot Camp drivers and disabling them does nothing, i've already had the crazy color thing a couple times... Anyone know why Windows is reading I have 5 monitors, if that is the problem, and how I can make it so it just reads the correct Apple monitor???
And if you click on the Plug and Play Monitor in Device manager and go to Details does it say DISPLAY\APP9C6A\5&2E5008AE&1&10000081&01&00 for Device Instance ID...
It'd be really nice if there were some screenshots somewhere of the device manager in a 20" aluminum 2.4 iMac running Windows XP (without any problems), just so I could compare...
Now I also have a SM Bus Controller with a yellow ? by it, I didn't have that before...

 

[lavrishevo]

It truly sounds like a problem with the driver. Have you tried to install the regular windows ATI display driver instead of the bootcamp version. Some people report better performance with the latter. Does this happen before or after installing the bootcamp ATI driver?

 

[UnInvincible]

The normal ATI catalyst drivers make it worse, when I try them, or even the omega drivers, I get a red shadow under the big Welcome message at log-on and I can also see it under the menu names in windows, and it still does the crazy color thing after a while...
What happens is that if I uninstall my display driver then all the monitor drivers are gone too, but as soon as I install any display driver then those 5 monitors are back in my device manager, and i've tried everything to permenently delete all but the Plug and Play, since that sounds like the one I should have...
This is getting frustrating, I actually just got home and my monitor was crazy colors again and I'm typing this while it's all screwed up... I'm noticing moving lines horizontal lines now... does that mean anyting???
Edit: I just noticed this, but i've seen it before, after a while a vertical black line appears in the middle of the screen that goes from the very top to the very middle, right through the Taskbar, i don't know if this means anyting but I'm just trying to give u guys as much info as possible so we can find out what this problem is...

 

[SlaunchaMan]

The normal ATI catalyst drivers make it worse, when I try them, or even the omega drivers, I get a red shadow under the big Welcome message at log-on and I can also see it under the menu names in windows, and it still does the crazy color thing after a while...
What happens is that if I uninstall my display driver then all the monitor drivers are gone too, but as soon as I install any display driver then those 5 monitors are back in my device manager, and i've tried everything to permenently delete all but the Plug and Play, since that sounds like the one I should have...
This is getting frustrating, I actually just got home and my monitor was crazy colors again and I'm typing this while it's all screwed up... I'm noticing moving lines horizontal lines now... does that mean anyting???
Edit: I just noticed this, but i've seen it before, after a while a vertical black line appears in the middle of the screen that goes from the very top to the very middle, right through the Taskbar, i don't know if this means anyting but I'm just trying to give u guys as much info as possible so we can find out what this problem is...

Did this problem occur when you installed the ATI drivers off of the Apple CD but not the ones from ATI? It might be a problem with the ATI drivers. I hate to say it, but it might be best to re-install XP, install the Boot Camp drivers, do Windows Update, and then see how your games run.

 

[nigrunze]

It'd be really nice if there were some screenshots somewhere of the device manager in a 20" aluminum 2.4 iMac running Windows XP (without any problems), just so I could compare...
Now I also have a SM Bus Controller with a yellow ? by it, I didn't have that before...

Here's my device manager if it helps.

NOTE: I manually updated the graphics drivers myself. They originally said Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT.

 

[UnInvincible]

May have solved!!! Probably not, haha, but my device manager looks a lot different now.... Like all the monitors are yellow ?s, but maybe it will be all right, If I go through tomorrow without any problems I'll post how I did it... but for now I have to go to bed...

 

[iMac20]

Reading all the posts I get the feel that we all think it's a driver issue, actually that's what I think we're up against as well.

Since "nigrunze" has got the device manager correct (just one monitor!) that's what I'm aiming for at the moment.

nigrunze", could you please post the links to the driver/drivers you downloaded and installed as well as a brief explanation if you find it necessary?

Check in on you guys later!

/iMac Alu

 

[nigrunze]

I installed Windows XP on my iMac before Leopard was available, so I used the Boot Camp 1.4 beta drivers. Everything installed as expected without problems. When I got Leopard, I updated the drivers from the disc. I don't think there were any driver updates from Boot Camp 1.4b to 2.0 anyway. I never experienced the problems that you're having. The main reason I updated the sound and video drivers is because the included sound driver sounds AWFUL and the video card driver seems to provide hardly any acceleration from the video card.

 

[MrNewton]

I have a very similar problem with my new iMac (only a week old).

I don't get any color distortions but I get the black vertical line and everything becomes a bit fuzzy. If I reboot, the problem goes away for a while.

The funny thing is that the first time this happened was when the computer rebooted the first time during the boot camp installation. Everything was extremely blurry and with a black line through the middle of the screen.

A friend of mine who has an identical computer to mine does not have this problem so I think it might be a hardware issue after all.

I have also notices that the top of my iMac gets *very* hot when I play games. It hurt to touch it. Is this normal?

 

[Neil321]

I have a very similar problem with my new iMac (only a week old).

I don't get any color distortions but I get the black vertical line and everything becomes a bit fuzzy. If I reboot, the problem goes away for a while.

The funny thing is that the first time this happened was when the computer rebooted the first time during the boot camp installation. Everything was extremely blurry and with a black line through the middle of the screen.

A friend of mine who has an identical computer to mine does not have this problem so I think it might be a hardware issue after all.

I have also notices that the top of my iMac gets *very* hot when I play games. It hurt to touch it. Is this normal?

Dont know much about these driver issue's but if you have smcfancontrol
you can turn up the fans while in OS X reboot into windows ( not shut down ) and the fans
should remain at the rpm you set them to while in OS X,that should help with the heat