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General discussion

Computer text turning black randomly

May 26, 2010 5:59AM PDT

Hello,

I've been having a very frustrating issue lately, and I don't know how to deal with it. I'm not quite sure when it started exactly, but I do know it's a recent problem (within the last 3-4 months).

Basically what's happening is that, randomly, text will be blocked out with a black square. I'm talking any type of text: text on menu bars, text on buttons, text in browser, text in software like 3ds max ect. When I hover over the text that's blocked out with my cursor it reappears, but then it "jumps" to other text around the screen. It usually only blocks out two or three lines on the screen, never all text, and the only way to get rid of it at the moment seems to be a computer restart.

I've updated my video card driver to the latest release and that hasn't seem to have done anything.

Video Card: Nvidia 8800GTX (8.17.11.9745)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit(6.1, Build 7600)

These are two screenshots showing exactly what is happening:
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/7879/problem1e.jpg
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/6411/problem2ng.jpg

Discussion is locked

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You make me wonder.
May 26, 2010 6:05AM PDT

"OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit(6.1, Build 7600)"

I usually see that on systems where those "Windows Activators" were used to activate Windows 7. And problems like yours almost always follow.
Bob

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I'm sorry?
May 26, 2010 7:50AM PDT

What is a windows activator? If you're implying I have an illegal copy of Windows 7, I have the case right next to me with the security tag still in the case. If you want further proof I'll be happy to provide photos.

Now can I get some actual answers?

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Re: black square
May 26, 2010 7:58AM PDT

OK, so it's a legal version of Windows, no doubt about that.

That leaves two options for this strange behavior:
a. A software issue.
b. A hardware issue.

To discriminate between those options we do a clean install of the legal OS from the DVD (either System recovery or Windows + drivers) and see what happens. If the strange behaviour disappears, is was some software issue. If it continues, it's a hardware issue (including a wrong driver, but let's assume you've got the right one for your 64-bit OS).

Kees

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Had to ask.
May 26, 2010 9:16AM PDT

By posting that version I've lost count of the number of times...

But given that I'd do the test we do at the shop. We slip in a blank hard drive and install the OS (no need to activate it) and drivers and see if the problem repeats. If it does we know to look at the hardware. The video card is the prime suspect.
Bob

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Understandable
May 26, 2010 9:31AM PDT

It makes sense to ask seeing how many people pirate OS's, but I don't see the point in illegally obtaining an operating system when so much can go wrong.

I really don't want to have to reformat, but if that's what I need to do then I will. I'm gonna look for any software I installed recently and try removing/reinstalling to see if that's the issue. If that doesn't yield results I'm going to try a system restore to an earlier date and hope that works. If not, I'll reformat.