Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to remove.

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Beepster
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2016/02/06 11:41:10 (permalink)

Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to remove.

Okay, I know this isn't a Sonar issue but I think it might be part of the reason why I've been having some problems lately (but this has been happening since before those issues started). Just hoping for some insight as to what it could mean and how to correct it.
 
This can get moved to the Computers area if the hosts feel it's inappropriate. Just thought I could get more eyes first off up here.
 
This is what's happening (and Sonar isn't doing this but it's been doing some other graphical stuff that might be related).
 
Sometimes if I open a program (and I first noticed this with Microsoft Security Essentials but it just did it with my GEForce Experience program thingie) then close it the last image of that program remains on the screen. The program itself closes but the ghost image remains covering up my destop. If I right click lasso over top of it I can chop out squares of the ghost image to expose what's underneath. So the lasso area gets removed but nothing else... I have to lasso the whole image to get rid of it which isn't a big deal but it seems like a symptom.
 
Up until about 6 months ago I guess I had been using the generic Windows driver for my graphics card (Gigabyte nVidia GEForce 210) because when I tried to adjust my screen res to use the entirety of my flat panel screen (an old LG TV/monitor) I did not have the NVIDIA panel stuff installed (but I could have sworn I had installed the proper drivers when I built the rig). I am not certain but I think this started happening after that... but not right away perhaps and intermittently(?). Hard to tell because I generally only use Sonar on this rig and only futz with MSE when I need to go online.
 
At that time I had installed the most up to date driver for my rig but the GEforce updater thingie has been nagging me so today I decided to try to update it. The only update said it was just a security thing but I figured I'd try it anyway (maybe just the updater trying to update itself... which is a little obnoxious). Once I tried to do the update the download refused to start so after a way I clicked the stop button and it whitescreened on me. Tried to close it and the whitescreen remained. That was actually a "ghosted" image and I had to lasso it away like I do with MSE sometimes.
 
All "Important" Windows updates are installed (as of yesterday) but I don't install the "Optional" ones if that's relevant (I never do on any of my systems in case MS is trying to sneak something annoying in like Bing or IE).
 
And I guess that's about all I can say other than since Lexington (which I am still on but am about to try Manchester and if that doesn't work for me some of the earlier releases like Kingston of JP... really don't want to go back to Foxboro or pre-aux tracks era).
 
Just wondering if anyone is familiar with this and can offer some insights as to what might be going on or if it's even something to worry about. It doesn't hurt anything. It's just weird and as I said perhaps a sympton of a larger issue that IS causing me problems.
 
Oh and I've scanned for viruses/malware using MSE and Malwarebytes as of yesterday (with up to date definition files). Neither found anything (wouldn't expect them to).
 
System Specs:
 
i7 2600k (not overclocked)
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro Gen3 (MOBO)
Gigabyte GEForce 210 (nvidia vid card/custom resolution set to 1360x768 60hz because that's the only res that kind of works with the monitor)
16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 (RAM)
C Drive 7200rpm HDD 500GB (programs/OS)
E Drive 7200rpm HDD 1TB (storage/audio)
*both drives are Barracudas IIRC... might be Caviar Blacks. I always forget.
Win7 Professional 64 bit
Focusrite Scarlett 18i6
 
edit: Oh and I built this system myself back in 2012. First build and has generally worked pretty well. Might be getting a little old now though.
 
If anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate them.
 
Thanks muchly and this is not an emergency.
 
Cheers!
post edited by Beepster - 2016/02/06 11:56:40
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16 Replies Related Threads

    John
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 12:47:05 (permalink)
    How about a screen shot? I know why you posted this here in the Sonar forum but really it should rightly be in the computers forum. 
     
    I'll give it little more time here but after that I'll move to it.
     
    Now, if I have things straight you exit a program yet it stays on the screen as a graphic of it?  

    Best
    John
    #2
    John
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 12:53:05 (permalink)
    Look at this Beep http://superuser.com/questions/270470/menu-item-from-closed-program-stays-on-top 
     
    Let me know if what you see there and what is described is similar.   
     

    Best
    John
    #3
    Beepster
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 12:56:09 (permalink)
    John
    How about a screen shot? I know why you posted this here in the Sonar forum but really it should rightly be in the computers forum. 
     
    I'll give it little more time here but after that I'll move to it.
     
    Now, if I have things straight you exit a program yet it stays on the screen as a graphic of it?  




    Yup... but not all the time. It's weird. I do think maybe this is better off in the Computer forum. Ain't getting any bites up here.
     
    Don't think a screenshot will really do much though. All that happens is the program GUI appears to be there but it isn't. You can't click it or interact with it. Right Clicking and Dragging to do a desktop lasso hacks away any pixels inside the lasso area.
     
    Also if I hover the mouse over something underneath that wil cause graphical activity such as a desktop icon (for folders or shortcuts) then the icon will bust through the ghost image.
     
    It's just the graphic not releasing itself. Very odd.
     
    Cheers!
    #4
    John
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 13:12:23 (permalink)
    It must be a page refresh issue. I have never seen this ever. Not in all the years I have been computing.
    What I found interesting in that link was that it seems to somewhat common on Windows 7. But it also can be on any OS.
     
    That said what graphic card do you have and do you have the latest drivers for it?
     
    I will move this now.  

    Best
    John
    #5
    Beepster
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 13:15:28 (permalink)
    John
    Look at this Beep http://superuser.com/questions/270470/menu-item-from-closed-program-stays-on-top 
     
    Let me know if what you see there and what is described is similar.   
     




    Not really but maybe kind of? I disabled the "Fade Out Menu" thing anyway to see if that minimizes the issue. It's very hard to reproduce.
     
    One other thing that may be related and I find a little odd (but is likely some setting somewhere) is my Desktop icons and I guess desktop itself brightens up when I draw up my taskbar (which is hidden but animated to popup when I ram the cursor into that side of the screen).
     
    I've had it set up like that since I built the rig but the "bright/dark" thing is newish as well.
     
    I think the NVIDIA/GEforce crap is screwing around and "helping"... which translates into a bunch of weird annoying crap.
     
    I think Sonar introduced VST Window scrolling recently, did they not? As in if a plugin GUI is too large for your screen res you can scroll around to access the hidden portions?
     
    The only reasoon I installed the GEforce stuff was to set my resolution to use my widescreen so I could view AD2. That was the ONLY plugin (not even AD1 had a problem) that I could not view in it's entirety.
     
    If I can scroll around now then I may just uninstall this NVIDIA crud and go back to having a couple black bars on the side of my screen.
     
    Cheers... and sorry if that's weird/crazy.
     
     
    #6
    Beepster
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 13:17:19 (permalink)
    John
    It must be a page refresh issue. I have never seen this ever. Not in all the years I have been computing.
    What I found interesting in that link was that it seems to somewhat common on Windows 7. But it also can be on any OS.
     
    That said what graphic card do you have and do you have the latest drivers for it?
     
    I will move this now.  




    All in my OP, dood.
     
    Thanks.
     
    PS: It's not so much that this problem is the problem... just that it might be indicating something else is going on that is screwing up Sonar or maybe somehting on my rig is dying.
     
     
    #7
    John
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 13:19:01 (permalink)
    Gigabyte GEForce 210 (nvidia vid card/custom resolution set to 1360x768 60hz because that's the only res that kind of works with the monitor)
     
    Sorry I didn't see it before. Could the custom setup be a problem? What monitor?

    Best
    John
    #8
    John
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 13:24:57 (permalink)
    It shouldn't die yet its too young! I do believe its a page refresh issue. You just have the single monitor right? 
     
    It could be how you have setup Windows. Look up performance in windows settings and see what is set there. 
     
     
     

    Best
    John
    #9
    Beepster
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 13:28:17 (permalink)
    John
    Gigabyte GEForce 210 (nvidia vid card/custom resolution set to 1360x768 60hz because that's the only res that kind of works with the monitor)
     
    Sorry I didn't see it before. Could the custom setup be a problem? What monitor?




    Ahh... yeah it's an old LG model. I had an epic thread about it a while back I'd have to dig up (that was back when I was trying to figure out the resolution and driver stuff). I think you were in that one.
     
    I'll let it lie here for a bit to see if anything comes up or if anyone's experienced this before but I can hunt down that thread if need be. Gonna see if I can get some other stuff done in the meantime.
     
    But definitely, yes... the resolution could be a problem. Dunno. And really I don't care about this problem if it doesn't affect my audio/SOnar performance. It's a very minor annoyance. If something is seriously wrong though I gotta deal with it.
     
    Cheers.
    #10
    Beepster
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 13:32:24 (permalink)
    Based on your previous link I actually tried clicking the "Performance" mode option but it was pretty darned agressive and horrendous. lol...
     
    It essentially deselects ALL the items in that list and makes everything look like poop on a cracker so I may just ease into that stuff a bit.
     
    May or may not help and I'd have to see how it affects Sonar and various other audio related programs.
     
    I generally don't care about cosmetics but that was an immediate throwback to Win3.1 graphically... heheh
     
    If it helps with audio stuff though I will do it.
     
    #11
    John
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 13:55:11 (permalink)
    No thats not what I meant. I have as much eye candy as I can which is everything. With Windows 10 it actually rather nice. I was thinking more about performance vs background. Set it for best performance while keeping graphics on a high level. 
     
    With Vista this was a non issue. Its also so in all the MS OSs since. Graphics when put on the the highest level get moved from CPU processing to the GPU directly. (Think of OpenCL) Eliminating high performance in order to save CPU actually does the opposite. The last thing you want is all graphics processing going through the CPU. In XP and older OSs  direct GPU processing was not possible for a normal Windows program. Only games went through DirectX for display. 

    Best
    John
    #12
    ampfixer
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 14:45:35 (permalink)
    I would pull the card and re-seat it. After that I would go back to the factory install disk and re-install the driver it shipped with. It sounds like the issue is graphics card related for sure. If it was Sonar only I'd flush the picture cache, but this seems global from your description.

    Regards, John 
     I want to make it clear that I am an Eedjit. I have no direct, or indirect, knowledge of business, the music industry, forum threads or the meaning of life. I know about amps.
    WIN 10 Pro X64, I7-3770k 16 gigs, ASUS Z77 pro, AMD 7950 3 gig,  Steinberg UR44, A-Pro 500, Sonar Platinum, KRK Rokit 6 
    #13
    Beepster
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/06 15:18:03 (permalink)
    Honestly the vid card was an afterthought because I was advised it may not be a good idea to use the MOBO's onboard graphics for Sonar. I hunted this one down because it had 1GB of onboard video memory which would offload some resources from the CPU/MOBO and was fanless (heatsink so no noise) but I picked it up for $20 because I was out of cash.
     
    Reseating might be good. Considering uninstalling all the annoying NVIDIA crap too. Also I've been wanting to completely wipe this system and start from scratch but that's gonna take a HUGE amount of sorting, cleaning and backing up. I just have not had time and the system has generally been solid.
     
    I'm going to be trying out Manchester so hopefully that will knock the Sonar issues out and this will go back to being a simple oddity/annoyance BUT I guess I could/should crack the case and do a visual of the hardware.
     
    Cheers.
    #14
    bitman
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/07 00:26:43 (permalink)
    You can run msconfig and see the NVidea stuff and uncheck it, both in services and startup.
    This will have the effect of uninstalling without actually uninstalling,
    #15
    bitflipper
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/07 11:31:06 (permalink)
    This is a driver issue. What you're seeing is a video acceleration feature (in which only those portions of the display that have changed are refreshed) that isn't working right. Check your control panel and see if there are 3D Acceleration options you can turn off.


    All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. 

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    #16
    Beepster
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    Re: Graphics: "Ghost" image of some program GUIs left on Win desktop. Need to lasso to rem 2016/02/07 18:03:39 (permalink)
    @bitm... I'm just going to uninstall all that crap and go back to my old settings if I keep having problems. Only reason I installed it was because AD2 did not fit into the old style screen res. Now that I think we can scroll in the VST window that's no longer an issue (but I gotta test it and would like to keep the widescreen action). Thanks.
     
    @bitf... I will definitely check that out. I don't need any of that fancy crud going on. My only care is about Sonar stability and audio quality. Not even sure if 3D acceleration has any (positive) effect on anything I do on this system. I'm guessing it's for games and video stuff... which I rarely partake in on this system and when I do I don't need any fancy shmanciness going on. Thanks.
    #17
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