PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

As of late, Ive been getting display corruption in the form of horizontal colored lines. I figure its a driver, and reinstalled graphics and sound drivers. Problem still persists. The problem first occured when running Raven Shield but has occured during periods of desktop idleness.
My video card is a 9700 Radeon. I ran a diagnostic tool that comes with the video card software, and it told me that my Directx 9b was incorrectly installed and recommended a reinstallation. After reinstalling directx, the diagnostic tool picked up the same problem again. I ran the directx diagnostic tool (run, dxdiag) and noticed that one of the files under the "directx files" tab lacked a version, attributes, and language. The file is called quarz.vxd. I compared the file to a roommates computer who is running windows xp and also has directx 9b installed , and he has a similar file called quartz.dll that has a version, attributes, and language. Also, his file is much larger about .73 mb while mine is only .005mb.
Ive messed with directx previously on another computer, and it resulted in a fatal system crash. Im wondering if it would be advisable to "copy paste" his file into my system, which brings us to another question. Where are the directx files?
Well anyways, thanks for any responses. This problem has really got me vexed.

System specs:
windows xp home
radeon 9700 pro
gamesound fortissmo III 7.1
service pack 1
pentium 4 2.4 ghz
640 mb ddr ram

if it were me, I'd just copy the file. If it's a system file that's in use, reboot into dos and copy it. I doubt it will happen, but if that screws up your system, you might as well start off fresh. (can't be bad)

vxd's are used in Win 95/98/ME, not XP.

I would suggest you try to do a recovery of the system if any recovery points are available. Second you can also reinstal WinXP or do a repair.

The problem could also be a virus.

Finally make sure in future you're not cought unprepared for disasters like this or worse. One word, BACKUP!

PS
DirectX files should be in the system32 folder but you can also do a search for those files. When running DirectX installer, all the installation files should be unpacked in a temp folder, look in there also.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: BingoTheClowno on 2004-05-12 10:58 ]</font>

hmmm im not very familiar with DOS. do u think u could walk me thru it kensuguro?

You have to use your original XP setup CD and choose manual repair I think, if you don't have command cons already installed. You can install command cons by running ntinstall /cmdcons from your int386 folder on your XP setup CD.

well, if the file isn't used in XP, you probably won't have to deal with DOS. Just copy the file over and it should be okay.

But let me know if you need a walkthrough of DOS and I'll be happy to help you with it. (through e-mail perhaps)

Well, da*nit, it would seem this problem is a little more complicated than it first appeared. I went into my roomates sys32 folder and located the file quartz.dll. I looked in my system32 folder and I have 3 files: quartz.vxd, quartz.dll, and quartz.CAT. Both mine and my roomates quartz.dll files are the exact same size. The vxd and CAT file are 6 and 7 kb large, respectively. This makes it seem that doing a copy paste job would be pointless and that possibly this vxd and or cat file is responsible. Im afraid to delete a system file. Any suggestions?
PS
Ive never had a problem with my IDE drives before, but for some reason my computer cant boot from (f12 at startup, 4, enter) the windows XP cd. I would like to run the system repair utility on the cd, but thats impossible given that I cant even boot it in the first place. I have a dvd drive set up as a slave drive, and a CDRW as a master.

shoot i wanted to mention this in the last post:

The corruption Im experiencing comes in the form of clustered patches of vertical green lines. The corruption first occured when playing Raven Shield as I mentioned before, but it has also occured while the computer was idling on the desktop, or while running programs such as winamp and AIM. The problem is very intermittent. Once corruption occurs (lets say in a game), after exiting the game the desktop display is corrupted and carries into any new programs run or windows opened. The weird thing is, sometimes the corruption just "goes away." In raven shield, after experiencing the screen corrup., I continued to play, and after about 4 minutes, the display returned to practically normal. After exiting the game, I noticed that for the most part my display was fine: only some small quicklaunch icons were displayed incorrectly.

Someone mentioned this could be a virus, a possiblity im inclined to lean towards. I have norton 03, and I keep it updated and run weekly virus scans. Norton hasnt found anything suspicous. I have also ran adawear, and aside from some annoying tracking cookies, nothing serious was found.

What are the possible causes of display corruption? I know video drivers are the most obvious one, but is it possible for sound drivers to cause it too? And I surmise from the manner of your responses that directx drivers could be responsible as well. Are there any other peices of the system that should be ran over with a fine tooth comb?

Sounds like it may be corrupt video ram to me. If that were the case then when the corrupted region was being mapped to the active window or region (your screen) you would see exactly those artifacts. Are your RAM sinks attached firmly to the graphics card? I had an Asus Geforce2 Ultra come loose once and show the same errors. I bought some thermal epoxy online and fixed it within an hour of the tube arriving in the mail.

Also one of my 'extra' systems lying about (I use it for internet communication almost exclusively) has an old Matrix G400 in it that has the same problem. In this case the problem started years ago and I moved the graphics card into a noncritical machine. It has persisted across many hardware changes and OS installs.

If you still suspect DirectX or a virus my first recommendation is NOT to use the XP system repair utils on the XP cd as the automated ones compare the installation to the files on the CD or to your initial XP install (assuming you built a restore image) and will require that service packs and windowsupdate be subsequently applied.

You should be able to modify DirectX related files (and most simpler virii) by booting into safe mode (hit f8 as soon as your BIOS POST screen is over--before Windows starts to load) and then uninstalling anything you don't want (or copying over it etc).

Also to get to the XP command line you can just do the F8 during boot and instead of choosing 'safe mode' as above choose 'safe mode with command line'. This will allow you to delete/copy etc. There are also methods documented on the internet for building a bootable CD or floppy image that contains everything you need to access NTFS volumes (xp's default for harddrives) and cd-roms etc.

If you found the problem to be loose ram sinks then why havent u repaired the machine with the Matrix G400 in it. Is it not of great concern, or does that machine have a different problem.

Its the ram on the G400. The machine that the G400 is in doesn't suffer from the bad video ram in any way other than occasionally areas of the screen will show corruption very similar to that described in the first post in this thread. Since the machine with the g400 only does email/IMs/etc etc its not a big concern