Any idea what's causing this funky business?

[Jimmy9pints]

Please see the attached screenshot.

It happens when playing back video and even with visuals while listening to music. It often happens randomly but I can cause it by skipping forwards and backwards in a vid.

If I close the video player and reopen it doesn't solve it. If I use another video player (e.g. mplayer instead of movie player) it doesn't solve it.

It's only solved by logging out and back in.

Any help appreciated.

J

[Jimmy9pints]

Anyone?

[Jammin80503]

You might want to make sure your video card is working correctly, and that your video cable is connected properly.

To see if your video card is working, enter

 glxgears

into the terminal. every 5 seconds, it will output a frames per second. If its over 1000 fps, it is probably working correctly.

[Jimmy9pints]

Thanks for your reply~

glxgears led to the gears window coming up and my system totally freezing!

Actually, my whole system freezes quite often (something which I have reported in other posts). Perhaps the whole thing is related. Seems to me, a high percentage of problems that people post about are related to graphics cards and drivers.

[Jimmy9pints]

OK, I typed glxgears again, the cogs turned and the system froze again. I stopped the programme and this output came up in the terminal:

james@james-desktop:~$ glxgears
346 frames in 12.3 seconds = 28.123 FPS
X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
james@james-desktop:~$

You said

If its over 1000 fps, it is probably working correctly.

So... I guess mine isn't working correctly at all.

FYI my graphic card is:
Nvidia GeForce 7300 LE

[Jammin80503]

I've seen this freezing problem before, it happened to my friend's computer when he didnt have enough RAM. what are your system specs?

also, there is a program called envy (http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html) that will configure your card for you. I recommend it.

[Jimmy9pints]

Hi,

My system specs are:

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
L2 Cache 512 KB
1004 MiB DDRII RAM

[cor2y]

Is compiz-fusion enabled?

whats the output of the movie player when launched from the terminal?
Try disabling compiz (System->Preferences, visual effects tab set to none)
Then try playback again.
If its good then you may have to not use compiz-fusion or enable the video playback plugin in compiz-fusion.

[Jammin80503]

your computer looks great, I dont see anything that would cause a problem. I'm pretty sure its the graphics card, or, as the post above me says, compiz.

[Jimmy9pints]

Thank you both cory and Jammin

I have had the Nvidia driver (and hence compiz) disabled since I last posted. My computer's running as sweet as a nut (no freeze ups, no funky business on the video playback) but it looks pretty old school.

J