Fantasiatls 2005-05-26 10:00
Back Again for more wonderful support:
System information:
System is used as a Stock/Trade Station
WinXp SP2
1 gig ram
3.0 GHz processor
450 MHz power supply
2 Quad Matrox Millenium G200 PCI 32mb Video Cards
8 17" LCD Displays
Okay, customer is having issues at random times, not to any one specific monitor. The screen will appear "shredded" including the cursor. He can slide the screen to another monitor and now the contents appear normal on the other screen. He shuts off the other monitor, turns it back on, slides the content screen back over and is good to go. There is no particular time frame, no specific function or same internet screen or application screen. Totally random.
Now he is calling up... system is starting to freeze bad enough he has to unplug from wall to get it to turn back on. I am going to check microsoft for any known issues and when I go to house check and makesure not a via chipset. Any other ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
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Fantasiatls 2005-05-26 10:20
One more note.....
What is the recommended refresh rate?
He was at 75 hertz and I had him drop down to 60.
Could I have missed any settings anywhere besides the obvious display settings?
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ECarlson 2005-05-26 14:56
Among other things, it could be a heat issue, or a video card or monitor going bad. Clean and reseat the video cards and cables, and make sure all the other fans, vents, and heat sinks are clean.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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fantasiatls 2005-05-27 08:59
Hi ECarlson,
No.... everything brand spanking new. All fans moving. I just came back from the house, set the resolution to 16 bit and 72 hertz and left a bouncing ball screen saver on to try and freeze it again.
I honestly think it has to do with a program he has running called Yahoo market Tracker. It runs with java applet and Java virtual machine.
Fantasiatls
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ECarlson 2005-05-27 11:24
Could be a JVM problem. I seem to recall some other problems with multi-monitors and JVM, but they could have been entirely unrelated to this problem.
You say you turn the monitor off: Does that mean the actual monitor power, or you turn off the Monitor in Display Properties? If it's the monitor power, the I suspect the monitor.
BTW: That's a pretty fast power supply. :-)
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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ECarlson 2005-05-27 11:26
PS: The LCD's probably recommend 60.hz, and if so, there's no reason to go faster, since there is no benefit using a higher refresh rate on an LCD.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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fantasiatls 2005-05-27 14:27
Hi ECARLSON,
Back again, okay in answer to your question no it is not the monitor as it is not always the same monitor nor program when this happens.
Let me shed more light...
I left the bouncing 3D Ball for 1 hour and came back it was still bouncing across all 8 screens.
My friend told me he was running two internet stock broker programsand within 15 minutes the monitors starting locking up and the computer froze. If you can imagine on the stock broker screen there is a active Stock ticker banner displaying stock symbols and prices. Since the market is closed by the time I get to the monitors i cannot see the real thing so I did the next best thing. I ran 3D PIPES screensaver.
Within 40 seconds I lost the first monitor with the shreaded appearance and within 2 minutes all were locked up and the computer frozen. I had to use kill switch in back of tower to turn back on.
I also tried Mystify which did the same thing. Yet the 3d ball and the flagship were both fine.
I did notice the faces of the monitors felt hot so he has a heat gauge and the temperatures ranged from 94-99 degree's.
I am thinking synchronization issue maybe?
Stock brokers have been known to run 8-12 monitors at a time so I do not understand what they have going.
I can run 8 active internet screens with no issue. Cnn, MSN music videos etc.
Now here is my biggest blunder... I forgot to check the chipset and it is a SIS 7001 PCI to USB host controller. I know it is recommended to change the driver to the microsoft driver when having usb issues, I am wondering if this could be my issue?
Well, thanks for any help and thoughts.
Fantasiatls
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ECarlson 2005-05-27 15:00
Sounds like its going to be a fun problem to track down. Did you try it with only one of the quad video cards installed? Did you try a different slot for one of the cards, in case there is an IRQ conflict between the 2 slots you are currently using? Do you have the latest motherboard BIOS installed, and the latest video driver for those cards?
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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fantasiatls 2005-05-28 13:42
Hi ECarlson
Yup... all updates.... it has to do with the tickers... just as 3D screen savers are not recommended on multiple monitors.
I keep going back to the fact I can run 8 different internet screens no issue.
I am thinking I might need to engage into a more expensive video card. Finding Quad cards are hard to find.
Fantasiatls
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ECarlson 2005-05-28 15:26
Before giving up on these cards, try setting a lower hardware acceleration setting for the video cards (under the Troubleshooting tab in Display Properties).
But, in any case, make sure you try different PCI slots for one or both cards first if you have not already tried that.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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ECarlson 2005-05-28 15:31
Also, under the Matrox Options tab, there are some other performance settings you can try turning off or on to see if they make a difference.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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fantasiatls 2005-05-30 08:23
Hi ECarlson,
Hope you had a wonderful weekend.
I will check out the IRQ for any conflicts, and I only have 3 PCI slots, 2 used and the last one which is available is on the bottom.
I will let you know how things go. I plan on going by tomorrow and if all else fails contacting Matrox.
Fantasiatls
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fantasiatls 2005-06-02 12:46
Hi ECarlson
Ready for this.....
I got a call that the system crashed after 35 minutes and he lost 4 of the monitors. Thinking ohh great a shot video card, I brought the system home with me. Totally at a loss, everything running fine for me, I ran my spywares.
Microsoft Spyware found nothing
Adaware found Fizzle bear and Mini bug, both are pop up generators and low evasive.
Then I ran Spybot, Wild Tangent was found. While trying to remove wild tangent it was popping up all these messages about it being a bad or corrupted windows image and these dll's that it is missing etc. It referred also to msjava. So then it hit me... XP came on this system and all I did was driver and system updates. So I have formatted and started all anew with a FULL real Winxp install. Hoping this is the fix.....
Thanks for your help and listening to me.... I will let you know how it goes.
Regards
Fantasiatls
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ECarlson 2005-06-03 13:06
Thanks for the update.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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