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13182
July 16th, 2010 11:00
Red Dots Appearing/Disappearing When I Click
After recently having issues with my graphics card I received a new one this morning. I installed it and everything seemed to be fixed.
However, after running my computer for several minutes I noticed red dots appearing at the bottom in my tool bar and at the top of pages I opened. What's odd is the dots seem to appear and disappear whenever I click my mouse. They will stay on screen unless I hover my mouse over them or click the area they are in. When I do this they change position.
The dots don't seem to be appearing anywhere on web pages I load nor on my background, only on tool bars. They arne't static either like I mentioned. I am nearly positive this isn't an issue with my monitor, and has something to do with my new graphics card. Does anyone know what may be causing this, or how to fix it?
Here is a screen shot of them:
EDIT: Just tried to play a video game. Dots and lines were flashing all over the screen...
DELL-Chris M
Community Manager
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July 16th, 2010 12:00
Reboot into safemode. If the red dots do not appear there, the monitor is fine. The issue is with either the video card driver or the card itself. Did you reinstall the latest video card driver from our website?
m3th0d1c4l
265 Posts
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July 16th, 2010 13:00
If you captured it in a snapshot, and we are seeing it, then its not your monitor. Its definitely the card or the drivers. I would uninstall the drivers, run Driver Sweeper and clean all ATI drivers from the system, reboot, and reinstall the latest from the ATI/AMD website, as the ones on the Dell Download page are way outdated.
The new drivers improve game performance in most cases and add crossfire support for newer games.
If it doesnt fix it, I would call up Alienware and get another replacement card.
deathleech
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July 16th, 2010 13:00
There don't seem to be any dots when I run in safe mode. I went to download the driver updates on the AMD website. I checked on Dell and didn't see any driver updates for my video card, the ATI Radeon HD 5970.
deathleech
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July 16th, 2010 14:00
I totally uninstalled my graphics drivers then reinstalled the newest ones from AMD's website. Still has the red dots on my tool bars and tons of lines/dots flashing when I play games.
I noticed it does it when I am trying to view some videos as well, but not all. What is up? Why is it only affective some things but not others?
m3th0d1c4l
265 Posts
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July 16th, 2010 17:00
Its probably only occuring when the card is going into 3D mode, and the GPU clocks go up. While you watch videos and idle, the clock speed of the GPUs are 157Mhz instead of the 725MHz, and memory clock speeds drop from 4000Mhz to 1200Mhz. Your second GPU also gets shut off as its not being used.
But once you try to lauch a game, or a Hi Def movie, the clocks rise, thus causing your problem. So its definitely a bad card. I would call Alienware up and tell them that you are experiencing the dots and lines in games, and they should send you another one.