Black margins on both sides of desktop

[eMTe]

It happened few weeks ago, but I almost forgot about it and kinda got used to it. After running some freeware game (which I hopefully dont have anymore and wont run it again by mistake) my screen first got black, than got inverted 180 degrees, than Ive heard some weird chiptunish sounds and my computer freezed. After two minutes I was back to windows, but with black 0,5 cm margins on both sides of desktop picture. I cant correct it neither in monitor settings nor in desktop settings.

I cant even show you how it looks, because screen caps dont catch these black stripes. It's like this hellish game has eaten part of the reality.

[Chroelle]

Well it seems I might have played the same game, because I have a somewhat similar issue with my screen which occured a couple of weeks ago as well.
My screen is flickering all the time, and also moving towards the left in a pace that lets me correct it twice in a day. Currently it has moved so much after I started the computer, that I can no longer see the BACK button on Google Chrome. So it has moved about a centimeter during 3 hours. I am thinking that I need to buy a new screen soon - which I wont mind if needed. But I would like my old screen to work, so I can postpone the purchase as long as possible. Also I was planning on giving this screen to my daughter when I bought a new one, so she could have her own computer in her room (in 3 years time).

[Zyx]

Wait... you guys still have CRT monitors? o_O

[eMTe]

No, I have LCD monitor (though it's 10 years old), but to me it doesnt look like monitor problem. Remember that my desktop got narrowed right after game crash.

[Zyx]

I was worried for a while how old stuff you're running...

When you boot, the BIOS text and all that are still using the full width, right? That should rule out monitor problems.

[eMTe]

Ill check it tomorrow. But you dont really believe it is a hardware issue, do you?

[Zyx]

Well, on modern hardware and operating systems it's nearly impossible for a game to screw up your hardware because of all the abstraction layers. I remember that many years back, ATI released a faulty version of their drivers that allowed users to select resolutions and settings that the user's monitor did not support which could lead to fried monitors. But, as I said, to my knowledge these days this has to happen on the driver level to cause hardware damage (because the game can't talk directly to the hardware to do stupid stuff).

If your BIOS setup screen is in correct width and all, that should rule out hardware (either in monitor or graphics card) problems. But the odd thing is that if it's just a wonky resolution setting you should be able just normally change it and everything should be back to normal.

[eMTe]

Forgot to check BIOS. I must slap a sticker on monitor to check it some morning.

Strange coincidence. Our monitor at work finished his existence just today after several days of odd behaviour. Red alert for me?

[Chroelle]

Wait... you guys still have CRT monitors? o_O

Nope. LCD here...

[Chroelle]

Now changing my last post to:

NO LCD here...

My screen finally died today, so now I am without a screen. One problem though. I tried borrowing a screen from my brother in law, and after hooking it up...NOTHING. So it seems it might not have been my screen but perhaps my graphics card... And since I cannot look up stuff on my computer anymore I have no real chance of checking that.
Unfortunately for me I threw out my old computer during the rainfloods this summer, so that also lost me a spare graphics card that I could have inserted to check if that was the problem.
At the moment it seems my only solution might be to take out the graphics card of my workpc, and try to plug it into my own pc, and see if that does anything...

Does anyone have an idea about what else it could be, or if there is something I should try out first, or any reason why my brother in laws out-of-the-box-new screen should not work on my pc? Anything really...

[eMTe]

Well, LCD monitors in my bookstore tend to die with the dizzy speed, so I can only virtually hug you and wish luck.

My personal NFREN-whatever-the-number-is monitor is 10 years old and still works, on the contrary.

As for compatibility, as far as I know, if you have an average graphic card and an average monitor and they both are only a couple years old they should work well together.

[Chroelle]

I did a lot of testing today and found out that it is most likely my graphic card. I tested with a monitor from work and wires from there as well, and that worked for 1 minute and then went dead on me as well. It flickered back to life on occasion but only for a smidgeon of a second. So the wires and monitor was cleared - extra much so when I hooked up my monitor to my work-laptop and it actuall worked. So I ordered a new card and hopefully that will arrive in 2-3 days.

[Maz]

on linux side if you get a 3.rd party driver for hw it is not rare to have undocumented ioctls left in driver. (calls which are used when driver is developed to do testing. Often giving userspace program access to hw via driver.

If driver is accepted in linux kernel by maintainers and mr. Torvalds (which still is the only way to get stuff in linux kernel), then there really is no such leftovers. The inspections code undergoes in mailing lists is really strict.

However when we speak of closed source... I would not be amazed to hear there is such a door open.

[Pager]

How is everyone doing with this issue?

Curly, your problem definitely sounds like hardware. Either the card overheated, or the RAM fried or something...is it possible the game reconfigured the memory arpeture or something, or tried to use it beyond its means...it may not have even been the game but coincidence...

eMTe, did you ever check the BIOS screen, also boot-up DOS screens are good indicators as well...anything that occurs before the video drivers kick in, also is it like that in Safe Mode? I've seen problems where the screen desktop is resized to no longer fit the resolution...ie, if you go into desktop settings, it looks fine, but the actual desktop resolution is off...Does your video card come with a separate control panel? I know nVidia and ATI both have ones you can download with their current driver sets, but if you're using something dense like Billy-Bob's Junk Arse Video Card version 3.2 now with 3dFx Technology you may be out of luck.

Also, are you uploading this game? I would call this a huge issue in the game...

[eMTe]

Unfortunately, I didnt check bios screen, I got so used to the issue that I simply forgot that something is wrong. I also forgot to set an alarm in my cellphone to remind me that I should check it next time. Tomorrow morning...maybe.

As for the game you bet I dont run it anymore.

[Chroelle]

I never ran the game so it had nothing to do with that on my PC. And my problem is solved. It was my graphics card that died on me, so I bought a new one and now everything works perfect.

[eMTe]

As strange as it sounds, DOSBox, running in fullscreen, occupies whole screen. So this is Windows-related problem...

[eMTe]

BIOS is also ok.

[eMTe]

My troubles are over, but system reinstallation was required. It took me a while to find cds with graphics drivers, because it appeared that Intel no longer supports drivers for my card and I couldnt find them even on wildest and most suspicious sites, so for a while I was facing new trouble. Still, I wonder if there was an easier way to overcome the problem.