Bloody monitor!

[Carl]

My display has all of a sudden started flicking on and off. It's a BenQ
FP241W Z, connected via a DVI cable to an HD 2900XT. I have tried all
versions of catalyst drivers to date, and still the flickering continues, be
it on desktop, movie playback or when gaming. It's really starting to get
annoying. I tried an old Hitachi 17" monitor as well, and the flickering was
present there as well. I have tried the BenQ driver and the standard windows
driver. My OS is Vista Home Premium 64 bit. Anyone have any ideas as to how
to cure this?

 

[Carl]

When I reduce the display area from 1920x1200 to 1680x1050, the flickering
stops, as with 1600x1200, and 1920x1080. I also cleaned the PC to ensure
that dust was not the problem, and made sure that the DVI cable is not
touching any other cables, in case there was interference. Odd that the
display seems to behave when not at it's full resolution. I would have
thought that an HD2900XT would run the desktop at 1920x1200 without a hitch,
but this no longer seems to be the case. I have tried AAMD support and there
is an issue about large displays flickering, but currently there is no known
fix. Could anyone here suggest settings in the CCC that may rectify this? I
am starting to think that this HD2900XT may be damaged from playing all
these new titles that have recently come out. What I have been running
recently, no display problems prior to these: Crysis, Gears Of War, Kane And
Lynch, World In Conflict, Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, and Call Of
Duty 4 most of all.

 

[Carl]

Hmm, it seems that turning off the transparency in Vista has helped the
monitor remain stable, checked it at all the previously mention resolutions.
Last driver installed was the Crysis hotfix.

 

[Bill]

Hmm, it seems that turning off the transparency in Vista has helped the
monitor remain stable, checked it at all the previously mention resolutions.
Last driver installed was the Crysis hotfix.

If you boot up a LiveCD and it still fails I would begin to suspect
the video card, since you said it exhibits the same failure on two
different monitors.

Bill

 

[Carl]

What's a LiveCD?

 

[Carl]

Well, I have the TV card working fine here, pixel perfect news reporting on
my monitor! 3D Mark ran fine too, so I guess that the 3d capabilities of the
card are OK?

 

[Carl]

Of course, on a reboot, the damn monitor is back to flickering on and off
non stop again! I think I shall have to replace it with my X1900XT to see if
it is the problem. Or maybe do a reinstall? What a pain in the arse.....

 

[First of One]

For troubleshooting purposes, do the following:
1. Make sure vsync is turned on in CCC.
2. Turn off adaptive AA in CCC. Set AA and AF to application controlled.
3. Make sure your monitor refresh rate is the same shown in CCC and Windows
Display Properties.
4. Make sure ATi Tray Tools is not running (I've seen the framerate counter
appear in expected places, like in a media player window or Adobe PDF
Reader)
5. Try a WHQL-certified Catalyst version. Problems may be caused by the
incompletely tested hotfix driver.

 

[Bill]

Well, I have the TV card working fine here, pixel perfect news reporting on
my monitor! 3D Mark ran fine too, so I guess that the 3d capabilities of the
card are OK?

Are you saying it only fails in 2D mode?

Have you tried swapping out the video card?

Bill

 

[Carl]

Cheers Bill and First, I am using my other PC at the minute, XP64 with a
Radeon X1900XT, and there are no glitches at all. I'll try the 2900 in the
XP64 machine in a minute and see how it goes.

 

[Carl]

Well, swapped cards about, tried all First Of One's and Bill's suggestions.
I think I can say now that the HD 2900 is faulty. I'll just get an RMA for
it...

 

[DaveW]

The fact that it does it on two different monitors and two different drivers
suggests the video card is probably failing.

 

[ian lincoln]

What's a LiveCD?

I'm only familiar with linux live cds. basically you can install a
rudimentary operating system entirely into ram. No hard disk access
required. Most useful for recovering work and settings from trashed windows
installs.