Display glitches in Windows 7 on Dell Latitude XT2

Since I installed Windows 7 on my Dell Latitude XT2 I am experiencing weird video glitches.

Funnily enough, they can even be captured in screenshots:

Those corruptions appear over time, it gets worse with applications using more 3D than the window manager, such as the supplied games. The ones on the background can be erased when dragging a selection over them. Corruptions on the window frame travel with the window itself as you move it.

Since this is an integrated graphics chipset, I assume this is either caused by faulty memory (unconfirmed after around 45 minutes of memory testing) or the display drivers.

Any ideas? And somehow I am unable to find newer drivers for the display adapter. The one currently installed is from 2009-06-03.

I don't remember similar things with the preinstalled Windows Vista, which I will try installing tomorrow (if time permits).

ETA: Installed 3D Mark 06 to see whether it occurs in other 3D applications as well and saw nothing.

ETA 2: I take that back. Some textures were garbled in the same way.

ETA 3: This was a 32-bit operating system. I won't use 64 bit as it doesn't make much sense with only 3 GiB of memory.

ETA 4: Installed the supplied Windows Vista again, doesn't happen in the window manager but it does in 3DMark 03, albeit very rarely (essentially I caught it only in one test and then you have to look closely to spot it), but the issues are also there on Vista. Not nice.

ETA 5: I contacted Dell support and they say that Windows 7 is not 100 % supported yet, still waiting for another answer though, as my screenshot didn't get through the first time.

Joey

Posted 2009-09-22T20:48:41.537

Reputation: 36 381

Yup same problem with XT2 - 7(32). So I guess virtualisation is off the menu unless the older intel media accelerator driver is installed?
Will Try:

virtualization on and VT-d (Direct-I/O) off

I take it the RAM mismatch is not really related? If anyone knows of a fix or viable intel update please post – None – 2011-02-08T19:16:59.063

Answers

http://communities.intel.com/thread/5566

Disable virtualization support in the bios and it fixes the problem. It's a known fault with the chipset. The other option is to install matching memory modules. This fault seems to be present with any computer which is using the 4500mhd intel graphics chipset. I had the same problem on my Dell e4200.

bub

Posted 2009-09-22T20:48:41.537

Reputation:

Yuck, that basically sucks. What exactly do you mean with »matching memory modules«? Exactly same model? Same size? As far as I noticed I don't have control over one memory module in the laptop. – Joey – 2009-10-02T17:12:00.880

Disabling virtualization had no effect at all. – Joey – 2009-10-02T17:22:58.547

Removing memory did. But with only 1 GiB of memory it's pretty much unsuitable for work -.- – Joey – 2009-10-02T17:36:11.487

1Ok, memory installed, virtualization on and VT-d (Direct-I/O) off (I disabled everything virtualization-related before) seems to work. Still, I'd like an actual fix :/ – Joey – 2009-10-02T17:50:42.610

This is likely to be a driver issue, considering it started happening as soon as you installed Windows 7 and of course with 7 being a very new OS. A lot of people (including me) have had driver problems with Windows 7.

I would recommend turning off Aero visual effects and seeing if that improves anything. Otherwise experiment with other video card drivers.

At least you know it's not your screen since it can be captured in screenshots!

Michael Galos

Posted 2009-09-22T20:48:41.537

Reputation: 755

It also happens in Windows Vista, albeit not in the window manager. Switching off Aero should work around the problem when working and not doing anything that uses 3D but isn't exactly a solution to the underlying problem, unfortunately. As for video card drivers, there are almost none so far. But Intel had a few issues with drivers for Windows 7 since January so it isn't exactly unlikely that they did something wrong there. – Joey – 2009-09-25T14:28:30.430

I can't find any Windows 7 drivers available for that model at Dell's support site, even though their support matrix says that Windows 7 is supported:

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/osmatrix/index?c=us&cs=08&l=en&s=bsdr&~ck=anavml

I can think of 3 things:

Use the Windows Standard VGA driver (and lose most of the visual effects).
Start turning visual effects off (Aero Theme, etc.) until the problem corrects itself.
Reinstall Vista as that's the version of Windows that came with the unit and are the drivers that are certified to work on that model.

joeqwerty

Posted 2009-09-22T20:48:41.537

Reputation: 5 259