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View Full Version : [ubuntu] Very Strange Screen Problem - Bottom Third Not Working Properly


seamusandrosy
June 6th, 2008, 06:37 PM
Hello!

A few hours ago a very, very strange screen problem suddenly sprang up.

The bottom third of my screen is not reacting properly. Sometimes it works fine, but then it will freeze the image when I turn the cube, so I'll have two-thirds of one side of the cube on my screen, and that will work fine, but then there will be the one-third of another side frozen there.

Then it will - I'm sorry, I'm having trouble finding the proper words to explain things - dissolve, in all the wrong colors, over the course of about three seconds, and the whole screen will work fine again.

Sometimes, and this was the first part of the problem I noticed, the bottom third will vibrate.



I have a Compaq Presario V500 laptop. I've been running Ubuntu for weeks now without any problems. I have a dual boot.

I'm very afraid it's a hardware problem - I try to be careful with my laptop, but the laptop itself has been getting ridiculously hot lately, I actually burnt myself on it once, and it's 97 degrees out. Could that combination have fried something?

Also, I'm not the original owner. We bought it from a friend of the family about ten months ago.

Does anyone have any ideas on what this could be caused by and what my best course of action is?

Thank you!





EDIT:

It looks like it is a hardware problem - I hooked it up to a monitor and observed it, and the vibrating-bottom problem did not occur on the monitor...

thideras
June 6th, 2008, 07:22 PM
You mentioned that you dual boot. Does the other operating system show the same results (graphical corruption)? If you have Windows as the other operating system, please download RivaTuner (FOUND HERE (http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163)) and go to the hardware monitoring screen, found here:

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g121/thideras/rivatuner2.jpg


Can you see what the temperatures are? If it has a probe, please tell us what it is reporting.

I'd also suggest getting CoreTemp (FOUND HERE (http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/)) to see the temperatures of the processor.

If you can provide the temperatures, we can determine if it is a hardware or software issue.

seamusandrosy
June 6th, 2008, 07:53 PM
Thank you so much for your advice. Unfortunately, to add insult to injury, I tried to boot Windows XP and it said that it was corrupted and could no longer work.

Should I try to use those programs in wine?

thideras
June 6th, 2008, 07:56 PM
You could try, but I don't know how well they work (if at all).