Project Reality Forums

I hope you guys can help me. I have no idea how to find a fix myself as I haven't a clue how to search (under what terms) for this problem in google.

About two months ago Windows suddenly started experiencing this weird problem. Sometimes, upon starting up (or after deactivating the screen saver), there seems to be a problem with the display of Windows. There are either horizontal or vertical 'stripes' all over the screen. Sometimes in addition programs seem to 'lag', like previously selected Spotify faintly remaining on display despite opening a Microsoft Edge window.

The appearance seems completely random, altough one time it kept popping up after opening a spoiler section on a forum.

It usually fixes itself after going to the ctrl+alt+del screen, or opening full-window programs like YouTube/VLC full screen or starting a game. Sometimes it's so bad only rebooting the PC will get rif of it.

It feels a bit like a driver problem, but I updated my video card driver to the latest version and that didn't help.

Here's an example of how it looks:

Defective LCD or GPU. Do you have another monitor you can plug in to see if it happens there as well?

I do have another monitor, I'll try that once I have some time.

This is a typical error for a blown capacitor in the GPU or in the monitor. As PBAsydney said, check with another monitor. If the error continues, remove the GPU and use the internal CPU as a test. If it then continues you have bigger issues. Otherwise your GPU is trash.

I didn't get around to testing a different monitor, but I did find something else. When I use a USB drive to start a secure (Ministry of Defense) Windows environment (software is on the USB stick but it uses the regular PC's hardware) the problems I mentioned in the OP never occur.

Which again leads me to assume the problem could be software related, ie a bug or whatever in my home version of Windows. Is that possible?

Could be indeed software related then.

Do the lines ever appear before you get into Windows? (on boot screen or in bios)

Did you try reinstalling your display driver already? (Use Display Driver Uninstaller to uninstall the old one.)

To see if it's the LCD or the GPU, simply turn GPU off in the device manager and see if the problem persists.

EDIT: Given that you have some MOBO-integrated GPU, of course xD

So it got worse and I finally had time to cross-check with different cables and PC's. Switching cables did nothing, but putting the monitor on a different PC showed the same problem. So the LCD is defective.

I've barely had this LCD for two years and it was pretty expensive ($380) so I hope the warranty will cover it.