Is there any need to update video card BIOS?

[cheerful]

I kept having problem with red dot/line appearing on the screen when scrolling. I wonder if there is a fix via some BIOS update. Thanks!

XP SP2

Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4200

 

[ski]

See if the problem happens with a different monitor, or with your monitor on another system.
If another monitor has the same problem, or the problem goes away with your monitor on another system, then make sure the video card is fully seated, clean any dust from its fan and heatsink, make sure its heatsink is securely mounted, uninstall and reinstall its drivers, install new drivers.

If another monitor works ok, or your monitor has the same problem on another system, then your monitor may be bad.

 

[Frank4d]

Is the red line right under your mouse cursor when you use the scroll wheel? If so, suspect a bad mouse or driver (this happened to my son's PC after spilling water on the mouse).

 

[cheerful]

No. The red dot/short-line appears all over the places. The worst I saw is in Outlook. Deleting a mail will result in a lot of dot/lines.

 

[felixc]

The card has always been doing this? You have the most recent driver, and that you have verified if the trouble happens at different resolutions and pixel depths. The scrolling operations are exercising the hardware in different ways depending on the pixel depth.

 

[cheerful]

No. It only showed up after I updated the driver. I thought it was driver. But reverting the driver does not good, no matter how I do it (removing it first, etc).

I've tried both DVI and VGA at various resolution, same problem.

PNY told me the card is just out of circulation -- their definition of "lifetime warranty" is as long as they have it in stock.

 

[felixc]

This is usually a driver issue. But if reverting to an older version does not fix it, hmmm...

If you remove the hardware acceleration, in the graphics card control panel, do you still see the problem? The scroll functions are all made in software.

Thanks for telling what PNY means with lifetime warranty. Interesting.

The Ti4200 isn't a hot card these days so it is unlikely that you will get a good support from these people. This isn't a great encouragement, I'm sorry. If a Ti4200 does the job for your applications, then you'll be able to find a replacement for cheap.

 

[Frank4d]

PNY told me the card is just out of circulation -- their definition of "lifetime warranty" is as long as they have it in stock.

Yeah... I will no longer buy from them after learning that a year or two ago. "Lifetime warranty" to me means as long as I own the product or they go out of business. And if they no longer make it then give me something refurbished, equivalent, or better. Not so with PNY.

 

[cheerful]

If I disable hardware acceleration completely, it will reduce the red dot/line, but not 100%.

How can I do a clean reinstallation of driver?

Thanks!

 

[ardnum]

I'm having a similar problem as others concerning the so-called PNY "lifetime warranty". The fan on my PNY video card failed. I filed a RMA request. PNY Tech Support told me that since the product was no longer being manufactured, there was no warranty. What a joke. For all we know, PNY may be changing revisions every month and then claim that a failed product is no longer being manufactured. I, for one, plan to file a lawsuit against them for misrepresentation, among other complaints.