Windows 7 Weird screen glitches

[beeaitch]

Ok so I'm on a Toshiba Satellite Pro L650 with an ATI Radeon HD 5650. I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium. Every time I watch an online video, or run one through Windows Media Player, I get these weird glitches on my screen. Sometimes it's just a bunch of little red and green dots flashing around in random places on the video and sometimes half the video screen goes all pixelated with huge pixels in strange colours. I just put up with it because I fiddled around for a bit and couldn't find an easy fix for it. A few weeks ago my hard drive crashed and I had to send my laptop in to get a new hard drive fitted. When it came back I had to reinstall Windows and reinstall all programs and so on. I watched a few videos in the first day or two of having it back and guess what? Everything ran fine! No glitches, no random pixel attacks, nothing. But the next day, in the middle of a video, it froze up for a second and when the video played again, all the errors were back.
The only possible thing I can think of is that some Windows update must have screwed with it or something? Because at that time I was frequently installing updates to catch back up (once or twice a day) and I had recently installed updates since my last video watch. My graphics card driver is up to date according to Device Manager and no resolution changes or anything will fix it.
Anyone got any ideas?
Much appreciated

PS: I included a picture that shows (though not very well) an example.

 

[kaos]

have you overclocked your pc in any way ?

 

[beeaitch]

Not at all :/

 

[nmsuk]

Can you install the latest drivers from Link Removed

You need AMD Catalyst Packages and Individual downloads. Use the AMD Catalyst package to install the drivers for you. I've supplied the link to the 32bit version as you didnt specify which one your using.

Here's the 64bit ones just in case Link Removed

 

[beeaitch]

Thanks nmsuk (I am on 64 bit)
I did come across this when I was searching for a solution but it says you have to uninstall your current driver before you can install that one. I'm no expert on drivers so I was kind of reluctant to try it because it seems to me that that would mean you'd have to run a computer with no graphics driver before you can install the new one. Wouldn't that mean you wouldn't be able to see anything or something? Kind of a noob on the subject could you explain how it works please?

 

[nmsuk]

Ok, I know the guides say to uninstall you lst driver, but that's not necessary. Just install them over the top. If for some reason that doesn't work not to worry. Uninstall the drivers via catalyst install manager when thats done reboot. When you get back into windows the card will be using a standard vga driver All you have to do then is install the new drivers.

Hope this helps, if not I'll be happy to see what else we can do to get you sorted.

I can undersand your reluctance to uninstall a gfx driver as you'd think you wouldn't have a display but luckily this isn't the case.

 

[rbeldua]

hi beeaitch,

to uninstall driver download and install driver sweeper, it is a fast tool to remove driver leftovers from your system.

read more:

Link Removed

edit: from what you described about red and green dot flashing. seems to me a hardware problem. is the cooling fan operating well?






Link Removed

 

[nmsuk]

May I suggest you don't run Driver sweeper. I've seen it cause way more problems than it solves. I've been installing ATI drivers for the best part of a decade and every month I just install the latest drivers over the top of the old ones. Never had a problem doing that.

I always create a system restore point before upgrading video drivers though to be on the safe side.


Rbeldua I've seen Driver sweeper take out systems. I've found if you do need to do a clear out, for example moving from Nvidia to ATI CCleaner seems to be the safer option. Also reinstalling directx after using driver sweeper or ccleaner is also a good idea IMHO.

EDIT: What temp. is your card when this happens?

 

[beeaitch]

Oh it's definitely operating haha. It's a fairly noisy fan (not in a bad way for the computer, it just annoys me).
I'm giving the ATI Catalyst suggestion from nmsuk a shot in a second.
Grats on the thousand posts btw

I'll try it without the driver sweeper to start off with, thanks

 

[rbeldua]

no problem, its just an option and thanks.

 

[beeaitch]

I'll post some good examples of the actual problem in just a sec so you guys have a better idea of what I'm talking about.

EDIT: Woops I almost forgot, my gfx card runs at about 50 degrees Celsius and stays around that when I play videos.

 

[beeaitch]

Few more examples (completely random videos btw). And thanks for all the help guys

 

[nmsuk]

Those pictures show your problem well. I'd take that card back and get a replacement does look as if the card is suffering from memory corruption. Does it do the same in 3d games? Could you also try vlc with videos to see if it does it too.

 

[beeaitch]

The only thing it does in 3D games is put random black dots that jump around everywhere (similar to the red dots in videos) in Minecraft clouds. I've played through Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 recently on this laptop and there were no problems at all that I can remember. It just seems to hate videos for some reason.
On the plus side, perfect quality videos and no errors with VLC! Thanks!

Also I don't think it's a hardware issue for two reasons: one, when I sent the laptop in for hard drive repairs, I mentioned the graphics issue and they said there was no problem with the card and two, it was fine up until whatever update it was that I installed, I think that may be part of the problem.

 

[nmsuk]

If you using Internet explorer could you try Firefox and see if it artifacts in it. I'd be happier though if we could get the latest ati drivers on though. When you tried to install then did you run the smaller of the packages and then tell it to install the larger package?

I'm not going to give up on this issue as it has grabbed my attention and is puzzling me

 

[beeaitch]

I'm not going to give up on this issue as it has grabbed my attention and is puzzling me

Glad to hear it

I'm using Google Chrome atm, tested with Internet Explorer and Firefox just then and it does the exact same thing.

When I tried to install Catalyst I ran the exe, clicked install and it came up with the error message immediately after extracting the setup wizard. Didn't have a chance to do anything.

 

[nmsuk]

There should be 2 catalyst packages. you need to get this http://www2.ati.com/drivers/mobile/catalyst_mobility_64-bit_util.exe
and then this Link Removed Use the first one to install the second.

Is a strange way of doing things but let me know how it goes.

 

[beeaitch]

Slight problem
I can't install the first one without getting that same error as before, even after downloading the second one. Run as admin etc didnt make any difference. Can I install the second one without the first one or doesn't that accomplish anything?

 

[nmsuk]

Try just installing the second file. If that doesn't work I'll post a link to a modded set for you.

 

[nmsuk]

Modded mobile drivers http://www.mediafire.com/?8xv4z5uhqp19t2p