- [Instructor] For this first part
of the video troubleshooting lesson,
I wanna talk about some things that you can check
within the video subsystem,
and what those things might fix for you.
And we'll start with connections.
Just like we always do, always check the connections.
If nothing is showing up on the display,
first make sure that the monitor
is plugged into the video card
and to the correct video port.
And then verify that the monitor is connected
to the AC outlet, and make sure it's powered on.
If the image on the display is scrambled,
check that it is connected
to the correct port on the video card also.
If necessary, try removing the video card
and reseating it carefully if need be.
Then there's power cycling the video devices.
A proper power cycle means you're turning them off
and disconnecting the power,
and then waiting a couple minutes,
then plugging them back in and turning them back on.
So power cycle the computer, the display,
and any power protection equipment also.
Power cycling the equipment can fix all kinds of problems,
and it's an easy solution to implement.
Problems such as video memory,
also known as image retention,
and also stuck pixels might be easily repaired
by a power cycle of the display and the computer
and any surge suppressor that the equipment is plugged into.
You might also need to leave the display off
for a couple of hours to fix a video memory problem.
Now, video memory and image retention
are sometimes also referred to as burn in,
but that's actually a symptom of a problem
that occurs in the older CRT monitors,
the cathode ray tube monitors.
And CRT isn't on the objectives for the 901 exam.
It's the LCDs that you're interested in for the exam,
and it's really known as video memory or image retention.
So try power cycling the equipment for that.
Next is checking the onboard video.
Check for an onboard video setting in the UFI or the bios.
If you install a new video card to a computer
that previously used onboard video,
always check that the onboard video setting
is disabled in that bios.
It could conflict with the new video card.
And also be sure to plug the monitor
into the new video card, not the old onboard connection.
You know, in this scenario,
you might have two DVI connections,
one that's on the motherboard, integrated,
and one that's on the new video card,
so you have to make sure you're connecting to the right one.
Next is checking the resolution setting.
If the resolution was set too high
or was set to a resolution not supported by the monitor,
you might get a distorted image or no image at all.
So what you could do is you can boot
into low resolution VGA mode or safe mode,
and these are found in the advanced boot options menu
in Windows 7 and Vista,
and that's known as startup settings in Windows 8.
And what this does is it starts the computer
with the resolution of 640 by 480,
a basic VGA driver that'll run no matter what.
Then what you do is you modify the resolution setting
in the screen resolution window.
So I'll bring that up now.
And here's my screen resolution window.
I'm running two monitors on this.
This guy's running at 1900 by 1200.
Well, let's say the monitor couldn't handle that.
Let's say that it could only handle maybe 1680 by 1050.
Well, you could boot into that safe mode,
which starts with a basic VGA driver at 640 by 480,
and just reduce the slider here to what you need.
And the same for any other monitors
that you have on the system.
So that's a way of getting around that.
Lower resolutions will result in oversized icons.
Sometimes you'll see people
with the resolution set real low,
and you can see that makes the screen appear smaller here.
That's gonna make the icons and the images look really big,
oversized, and it'll make it difficult for the typical user
to view all the information required on one screen.
For example, if you're using a big database
or a big spreadsheet program,
or if you're doing audio video editing.
So simply increase the resolution setting
to fix that problem,
and that'll give you more screen area effectively,
and make all of your image and icons appear smaller.
Next is to check the driver, maybe the driver failed
or perhaps the wrong driver
was installed during installation,
or maybe an update to the driver is necessary.
If there's nothing on the display
or if the image is distorted,
or if the monitor only displays a lower resolution,
you can once again, boot into low res mode or safe mode
and update the driver from within a device manager,
or you could do it from a variety of other places.
For example, if you're, you know,
we were just in the screen resolution area.
We could go to advanced settings,
and you see the adapter for the video card here.
This is the GeForce GT 630, and we could go to properties
and then go to the driver tab for that
and update the driver from there,
or roll it back if necessary
if the new update causes you problems.
So there's a lot of places to go there.
And driver failures could also be the cause
of a blue screen of death.
So, you know, your video driver could be the cause of that.
So remember that you can boot into safe mode
to modify those drivers.
Next check the DirectX version.
DirectX is a windows technology that includes video,
animation, and sound components.
It helps a computer get more performance
out of multimedia and games and movies.
The DirectX diagnostic tool, or DX Diag,
helps you to troubleshoot any DirectX related issues.
And it'll tell you what version you're running,
and you can update it also.
The tool gives you information
about whether it's operating correctly,
and that can be started
by opening the run prompt and typing DX Diag.
And you'll get a window that looks like this,
your DirectX diagnostic tool.
And this one here is running DirectX 11,
Windows 7 and 8 use 11.
But you know, you can always upgrade
to newer versions as they're released
as long as the update for the operating system is included,
is running, I should say.
So on the main screen you have your system,
and it tells you a whole good deal of information here.
It tells you to DirectX version.
And then you can find out more information
about each display
and whether there are any DirectX problems,
and you might have a problem with direct 3D acceleration,
and then you're gonna have problems working
with a lot of applications and games.
Direct draw acceleration,
I actually disabled that on this system
'cause I don't need it, but if you're playing games
or doing AutoCAD or something like that,
then you might see some issues down here.
First of all, if it's disabled,
it's not gonna work very well, those programs,
and you might see some issues down here as well
that you can troubleshoot further with the event viewer,
and you know, by upgrading DirectX
and upgrading the driver for the display
and for the video card.
And I have two displays,
so it's showing both here.
It also gives you some information about your audio
and your input devices.
So pretty cool tool to use, that's DirectX.
And again, you can go to run prompt to type DX Diag
to get in there, that's DX D-I-A-G.
Next, check the temperature of the card.
Check the temperature threshold.
High end video cards are intensely used
by gamers and designers.
If the temperature surpasses the safeguards in place,
it might cause the card to throttle back the GPU speed,
or the video card might stop working altogether.
And that could cause the current application to crash,
or it to close, or the display could go blank.
So if this happens more than once or twice,
consider additional cooling fans in the case
or liquid cooling system or possibly a better video card
if it's just being used too much.
Use software to check and repair stuck or dead pixels.
When a single pixel fails, it could be very irritating,
but there are third party software programs out there
that could be used to identify stuck pixels
and possible dead pixels in an attempt to fix them.
If you go on Google or Yahoo and do a search for LCD repair
or dead pixel repair or a similar term,
you'll find some third party programs out there.
But always try power cycling the device first.
If you can't repair the stuck or dead pixel
with power cycling or with third party software,
then you might have to bring the display back in
for repair or replacement.
Next, calibrate the monitor.
If you see any artifacts or image distortions
or you notice incorrect color patterns
or the display just doesn't seem to look
quite as good as it used to, try calibrating the monitor
by either resetting it from the onscreen display
or by adjusting the contrast,
the brightness, and the color level.
Also you can try adjusting the color depth in Windows
and check that screen resolution again.
You know, we talked about the screen resolution.
And if we go to the advanced settings
and go to the monitor tab, you have that color depth.
You know, maybe it's running at 16 bit
and your applications really need 32 bit
to really look sharp.
You know, this is gonna be especially important
if you're a graphics designer
or if you're dealing with photo editing software
or other video editing,
you're gonna wanna set this to 32 bit.
So check those things,
try to limit reflections on the screen.
You know, make sure you're using an LCD
that has a decent screen.
Dim images could also be caused
by misconfiguring the brightness and the contrast.
Always remember to configure the brightness first,
and once you've gotten to that optimal brightness level,
then configure the contrast.
Next, use a filter on the monitor.
Sometimes a user will complain of eye strain.
This might not be a video issue at all.
It could be due to glare from fluorescent lights
or from the sun coming through the window or whatever.
Consider using an anti glare filter.
And we showed some of these previously.
Companies like 3M make these
for specific individual models of monitors,
and they help to reduce that glare
from all the lights and sunlight and so on.
In a more secure environment,
consider also using privacy filters.
These will reduce the viewing angle of the screen,
and only the person sitting
directly in front of the screen will be able to read it.
And privacy filters often reduce glare as well.
Next is check for newly installed applications.
New applications could cause the display to malfunction
or stop working altogether.
So you wanna check the application manufacturer's website
for any known hardware compatibility issues.
And if you're working with powerful programs like AutoCAD
or Adobe Premier Pro
or a lot of the games that are out there,
they will often have a list of recommended video cards.
And so you wanna go with that list
when you first build the system.
If you're troubleshooting a system that already has a card
and you have an issue to deal with,
then you may need to upgrade the application,
or you may need to upgrade the video card driver, or both,
or in the worst case scenario,
get a new video card in there.
And if you do, again, check those requirements
for the software and the recommendations
for the video cards to choose.
And finally, check inside the computer.
I usually leave this for last
because it's time consuming to open the system,
unless I have a sneaky suspicion
that one of the connections inside the computer is loose.
So check whether the card is seated properly,
and in areas where temperature and humidity changes quickly,
you gotta watch for the card being unseated.
And that could be due to thermal expansion and contraction,
and some refer to this as chip creep or card creep.
Also, if the computer was moved recently,
the card might have gotten jostled
and come out of the slot slightly.
Also verify that the power connections
and other cables are not loose.
You wanna make sure that those internal six pin
and eight pin PCI express connections are secure.
And check all the other connections inside the PC also,
just to make sure.
For example, if the system makes use
of an onboard video controller
and you start seeing garbled images
or strange colors or cursor trails,
then you might have a defective RAM module.
Or maybe you know, another issue.
It could be anything hardware.
So remember that the onboard video controllers
rely on the sticks of RAM and the motherboard,
as opposed to the individual video cards
that have their own RAM and their own GPU.
So watch for that as well, always check inside the computer.
That's about it for the part one
of the video troubleshooting.
There's a lot of things that you could check,
and some of the possible things that those might fix.
So watch for these, and in the second section,
in part two, we're gonna talk about some common symptoms
that you might see, and kind of do it in reverse
and talk about what you can do to fix those problems.