Aero bug in Windows 7

Have you seen anything like this before?

alt text

Not always but permanently shows up this strange behavior. What's the name of that problem? And how can I solve it?

I tried:

driver update
full driver/app uninstall and Lenovo ThingVantage System Update
turning aero off (... and everything works fine)
monitor driver update (but only generic PNP monitor found)

Configuration:

Lenovo Thinkpad T400s (was Vista but clean Windows 7 install now) (update: this is not a lenovo specific error)
Windows 7 Professional (ENG)
Mobile Inter 45 Express (WDDM 1.1)

Update

I found the 'correct' name: visual corruption.

The problem appears when VT-d technology is enabled (ie. for VPC). Turn off and hopfully everything will work fine. Details: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Windows-7-Discussion/Bizarre-screen-artifacts-on-R400-Integrated-Graphics-running-Win/m-p/199594. In short: go to BIOS and disable it.

Update II

Just for google:) It's hard to characterize the problem so there are some keywords for it:

aero, glitches, pixel, bug, visual corruption, garbled textures, frame error, virtualization, vt-d

boj

Posted 2010-04-02T09:41:06.853

Reputation: 185

Answers

I would advise you to check the current temperature of your GPU, when this happens. You can use something like Speedfan (or another recommended at this other question).

To me, it looks like artifacts which occurs when the graphical card is heating too much. Since Aero is relying on more advanced graphics than a regular desktop display, it could explain why such thing happens only with it. This thought is also seconded by the fact that you report such problem happening only from time to time.

For information, you can find examples of such graphical glitches happening at this link (too big images to copy here).

Gnoupi

Posted 2010-04-02T09:41:06.853

Reputation: 7 909

1thank you, the last link helped to solve the problem! edited my post to clarify. – boj – 2010-04-02T10:08:15.743

1@boj - my answer only pointed you in good direction, it doesn't actually answer the problem. You should write the answer yourself, with exactly what fixed it, and accept it (you can't accept your own answer before 2 days, though). It would make it probably more clear. Finally, my answer is only about heat, nothing really linked. – Gnoupi – 2010-04-02T12:54:20.757

I've had exactly the same problem with my Dell Latitude XT-2. See here. And yes, it was the same underlying issue.

Joey

Posted 2010-04-02T09:41:06.853

Reputation: 36 381

thanx, I'll collect the adjectives in my post to help others find it. – boj – 2010-04-02T12:42:20.037

Somehow I have doubts that the words in your post will do anything to make it more findable. – Joey – 2010-04-02T14:50:22.537

Apparently this happens if you use a mismatched (1GB + 2GB) pair of memory modules. Lenovo has a support page for the problem:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-74739&selectarea=SUPPORT&tempselected=5

I have the exact same problem and VD-t off solves it. Cheaper than upgrading to 4GB of RAM. :)

Adrian

Posted 2010-04-02T09:41:06.853

Reputation: 11