What causes this graphical glitch in my web browser?

Your screenshot is displaying a repeating pattern of video artifacts which is characteristic of video RAM artifacts.

If your computer screen is displaying video RAM artifacts, then it would show up first in web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome because these web browsers use a lot of RAM.

If the RAM in your graphics card is failing, sometimes just a small fraction of the RAM goes bad while the rest of the RAM continues to work properly. This can result in a screen that looks like a fraction of the screen has glitchy repeating patterns of video artifacts, while the rest of the screen is rendered properly. As a workaround in Chrome, browse to Settings -> Show advanced settings... -> scroll down to the System heading and uncheck the checkbox to the left of Use hardware acceleration when available.

Hardware acceleration in Chrome can also be temporarily disabled from the command line in Windows by starting Chrome using the --disable-gpu Google Chrome command line switch as follows:

Open a cmd window.
Use cd to change the directory to your Chrome profile directory. In Vista and Windows 7 or newer it is %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\Application
```
cd %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\Application
```
Type the following command and press Enter
```
chrome.exe --disable-gpu  
```

karel

Posted 2013-11-26T07:15:05.260

Reputation: 11 374

1I upgraded the CPU, motherboard, and RAM in my computer several months ago. I haven't seen this graphical glitch since. – Roderick – 2014-09-04T22:41:40.237

It definitely looks like that, but there are two problems: 1. Why does it happen only in browsers? 2. Why is it visible on screenshot? – gronostaj – 2013-11-27T01:05:34.457

@gronostaj hence my being stumped and going to SuperUser almost immediately. This also happens in Steam when attempting to view trading cards. – Roderick – 2013-11-27T01:31:52.287

1@VGambit If you've got a laptop with a hybrid integrated/discrete GPU, you can temporarily software disable using the discrete graphics processor for troubleshooting purposes (what application to use to do this depends on your graphics card model). If you've got a desktop you can borrow another graphics card from somewhere, and temporarily swap graphics cards for troubleshooting purposes. – karel – 2013-11-27T01:41:01.513

1On a second thought, it could be a discrete GPU failure. It appears only in GPU-accelerated parts of the screen and maybe Intel GPU treats that area as perfectly normal, thus causing it to appear on screenshots. – gronostaj – 2013-11-27T08:39:54.313

Desktop, and I'm unable to test with another video card for the time being because this was the replacement for another damaged card. – Roderick – 2013-11-27T13:34:19.357

@VGambit Another way to do it is to take the desktop computer to a computer technician and have him pop in a spare graphics card and test it for you. First you would have to find a web page, a game or whatever that always reproduces the visual artifact glitch on your computer. – karel – 2013-11-27T13:38:49.927

I'm starting to think that maybe the graphics card isn't the problem. I just switched from an nVidia card to a brand-new, late-model AMD card, and I'm still getting similar graphical glitches. Could it be the motherboard? – Roderick – 2013-12-17T01:07:51.443

1The built-in memory of your graphics card should not be more than half the amount of the RAM in your computer. The fact that the problem occurs when using different graphics cards points away from the graphics card as the cause of the problem, but does not exclude other possible causes of the graphical artifacts besides the motherboard. – karel – 2013-12-17T01:17:24.690

Thanks for the input. I'll eventually upgrade the motherboard, but since that includes both a CPU and RAM upgrade (and will likely run upwards of $300 to do), it'll be a while before I get to it. I'll add another comment here once I do. – Roderick – 2014-01-03T17:28:37.507

What causes this graphical glitch in my web browser?

Answers