What's wrong?

[mjordan2nd]

First of all, I don't think this is a Linux problem. This happend when I installed Windows XP. It never happend with 98. When I installed Linux, I expected this problem to be gone, and it never happend for the first month. Now it occurs more and more often, and I have to reboot every time to get the monitor to display right. The problem I am having is that the monitor ends up displaying like this:



Anyone know what's wrong, and how I could go about fixing it?

[jasonlambert]

I would guess your monitor and/or video card needs replacing, especially if it is happening under windows and linux.

[scientica]

Just out of the blue, are you running an overclocked gfx card? I've heard that overclocked gfx card can render strange - eg, missing pixels, odd lines, etc. Other than that I think like Jason that it might be an old card and/or/xor monitor, can you tell us how old tehy are, and what make?

[mjordan2nd]

I have nVidia RIVA TNT2 with upgraded drivers, and my monitor is a Dell e151Fpb.

[variant]

I had _exactly_ the same problem with a nvidiagf4ti4600.. it went in the bin:/ and now i have a crappy atiRage128. get a second opinion to be sure but i would say you need a new gfx card

[sarumont]

I had a similar problem with a GF4 Ti4600. It now hangs on the "Wall of Dead Hardware". Looks like time for an upgrade.

[Dolda2000]

Indeed, that is most likely a dead video card. I've seen similar things happening on lotsa other computers, and it's always a dead or half-dead video card.

It usually happens that certain 2D acceleration functions in the card break after a while, and then such things happen. If you use the "vesa" driver for XF86, the problems will likely go away since the vesa driver doesn't use any acceleration functions. However, that also means it's much slower.