# Videos Randomly Go Green



## Damonc (May 9, 2001)

I have a problem I've been dealing with for a while - and its really starting to annoy me.

I've reinstalled windows, updated video card drivers, directX, everything I can think of.
My problem is that when I'm playing videos (ether AVI's, DivX, MPEG, MPEG4) etc it randomly goes green.. what it does is the video turns a solid green from top left to bottom right corners, and then the remaining top section fills in - and its a solid green so you cant see anything behind it.. The sound keeps going, but the system kinda struggles (well it seems to)
I have this problem in Media Player, iTunes, Quicktime, basically whatever i can play videos in. I'm doubting it would be a dodgy codec, I'm assuming it would almost have to be the video card but I'm not sure..

Specs of the system are:
Windows XP Home SP2
nVidia FX5200 Video
AMD Duron 1.3Ghz
Monitor - I doubt this is needed but its a 19" Sony LCD.


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## davekay71 (Jan 29, 2006)

I have the same problem except that it only happens when I play video contents from a web site.


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## DKO123 (Feb 26, 2006)

I have this same problem, random green screen when watching videos. The problem affects Windows Media Player and QuickTime (and I believe Real Player as well). Just as Damonw describes, it's as if a diagonal line is drawn from the top left of the video display area to the bottom right. The green fills in below the line first, then above the line. It happens both when the video is running in a window or when running full screen.

I too tried upgrading my video driver. I even swapped out the video card. Both are FX5200 based boards from MadDog, although slightly different vintages. They were different enough that Windows detected the new board as new hardware and reverted to 640x480. I reinstalled the latest Nvidia driver and reset the resolution to 1024x768. Same problem.

I also tried different video accelerator settings (display properties, settings, advanced, troubleshooting tab), no effect. I tried turning off "write combining", no effect.

I thought maybe it was a system memory problem so I ran a DOS based memory test overnight, no problems detected.

I've run virus scans from Panda, McAfee, Symantec and Trend. Nothing detected. I ran AdAware and Spybot, no sypyware detected.

My system particulars are:

Shuttle AK32VN Motherboard
AMD Athlon 2400+ CPU
512 MB RAM
MadDog Conquerer FX5200+ AGP Video Board

Windows XP Pro SP1 (I was going to upgrade to SP2 but that doesn't seem to have helped Damonw).
Windows Media Player 9 (I tried 10, it didn't fix it so I rolled back to 9)
Nvidia video driver 8.1.9.8

Anybody else seeing this problem? Anybody know of a solution?


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## Damonc (May 9, 2001)

I was thinking about buying a new video card.. but if you've tried replacing yours then I dont see much point in me doing it.


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## DKO123 (Feb 26, 2006)

If you do try a new board, I would recommend trying one that is not FX5200 based.

Note that my replacement board was of pretty much the same type as the one I removed, both are MadDog Conquerer FX5200+ boards. The board I just put in is newer and subtly different physically. As I said in the original post, Windows picked up the fact that I switched boards (I thought it might not since the boards are quite similar, same manufacturer, same graphics engine).

You mentioned that your board is an FX5200 as well. Who is the manufacturer?

Perhaps this is a problem common to the FX5200. I planned to do a bit more research on that, but I have a standing offer from a friend to let me borrow a non FX5200 board to see if it rids the system of the problem. The sad thing is, I have three of these FX5200 boards. If it turns out to be a defect of the board (or the chipset, etc.), I've got three pieces of junk.

On the bright side, if I can convince MadDog that the problem is their board, they have a Lifetime Warranty, so maybe I can get three newer, better boards in trade. One of these boards started life as an MX440 board that I returned to MadDog for warranty service and it came back as the first of my FX5200's.

I wonder if our systems have something else in common that is causing us both to have the problem (besides having FX5200 based video boards). Perhaps some obtuse software that we both use. Might that be worth pursuing privately (not through the forum)? I'm new here so I don't know what the proper etiquette or protocol is for this type of conversation.


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## DaijoubuKun (Oct 20, 2005)

I had something close to that happen to me, and it was a codec issue. it was WMV9, even tho according to gspot some videos were divx/xvid. I later went to microsoft.com and searched for their codecs reinstalled them, rebooted and it worked fine. If that doesn't work, I recommend trying VLC (Video Lan Client). It does a good job with detecting codecs and can even tell you what codec it's trying to use. If that doesn't work, I'm not sure what the problem would be. (I guess Windows is just weird that way).

Now, I'm not running the FX5200 card, but that may also have something to do with it. Try getting either the latest or even older drivers for your video cards. I've seen issues (it's rare) with some newer Nvidia drivers. By downgrading to older ones many issues have been resolved, especially with DVDs.

I hope this helps, good luck.


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## DKO123 (Feb 26, 2006)

Thanks for the reply DaijoubuKun. A few questions, if you please. 

First, I'd like to figure out if we are seeing the same symptoms. Was what you saw random, that is, would you be able to play a given video flawlessly from beginning to end one moment, and then not be able to play the same video in the next moment? Did the screen behave as Damonw and I have described, painting the viewing area green below a diagonal line from the upper left to the lower right, then filling in the area above the line a split second later? I'm having a hard time believing that I could play the video at all if I didn't have the correct codec, but I guess anything is possible. As you say, Windows is just weird.  No argument there.

As for the video drivers, if you read both Damonw's post and my posts, you will see that we both had older drivers (in my case 5.3.0.3) and upgraded to the current drivers (I'm assuming Damonw upgraded to the same driver as me 8.1.9.8, as that is the current release). This had no effect, so I think we can say "Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt." But thanks for the suggestion.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

No need to go offline, one of the benefits of this board is we all learn about problems from what goes on. I happen to be the friend with the box of video boards that DKO123 is going to try if he gives up on those turkeys he has.


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## Damonc (May 9, 2001)

DKO123 said:


> You mentioned that your board is an FX5200 as well. Who is the manufacturer?


Mine is a genuine nVidia.. Im starting to think that maybe its a fault with those particular cards. Mind you a friend of mine has the exact same card as mine and he doesnt have any problems at all.

I'm also in the midst of setting up my system with a dual-boot config using XP and SUSE Linux 10.. So it will be interesting to see if the video plays up in linux, I used to run Mandrake along side xp, but that was before this problem ever arose.


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## DKO123 (Feb 26, 2006)

DKO123 said:


> You mentioned that your board is an FX5200 as well. Who is the manufacturer?





Damonw said:



> Mine is a genuine nVidia..


I don't think that's possible, at least not according to nVidia.  See here..

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=754

This nVidia FAQ says that they don't manufacture graphics cards, just the chips to power them. Someone else buys the nVidia chips and builds the boards.

I've still got some experiments to try here. I have a system that is only partially built that has the third of my FX5200 boards in it. Perhaps a different motherboard/CPU will work better. Or perhaps it will work better having less software installed (right now there's not much more than Windows XP Pro SP2 on it). One other avenue I plan to explore is to pull out some really old backups of the system that has the problem and see how far back the problem has existed. That might give me a clue as to what's causing this.

If you manage to figure out what's causing this on your end, please remember to share with the group!  Thanks.


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## Damonc (May 9, 2001)

hmm.. well if nVidia dont make them then I dunno..

The book, the driver cd, the box.. all just had nVidia FX5200 written on them.. no other brand names.. so maybe its just some generic one


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## baldycraig (Mar 14, 2006)

Hey. I've got exactly the same problem. I've been looking all over and couldn't find anyone with the same description. We all have the same vid. card so you guys must be right about that being a problem. Anyone fix it yet? Do you guys have the 256MB version?


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## Rollin' Rog (Dec 9, 2000)

I've seen a few Nvidia "color" issues related to this setting, might be worth checking:

1. Right click your desktop and select NVIDIA display, then you monitor 
will be displayed off to the side. Select it and it will bring up your 
NVIDIA properties. 


2. Select the Color Correction tab. The section that says Apply color 
changes to: will probably be selected to Desktop or Overlay. Change it to 
"All".


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## Damonc (May 9, 2001)

Mine actually hasnt done it for a while... touch wood.


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