This has happened 3 times in the past 2 days, any advice? It goes away after reboots but always comes back.
Update: So it could be GPU death, how exciting, especially for a 1.5 year old laptop. As of now it hasn’t terribly affected my workflow, but if this persists even after future kernel/driver updates, it may be rip. I am still hopeful that it could be software related, but time will tell!
This one is a little more interesting
Update 2: I was using Windows for testing purposes, and it happened again! This was immediately after picking the laptop up, so it is definitely hardware related. This time it made a horrible noise as well, answering some of the questions. So somehow by picking the device up, maybe the internals are slightly bent, causing the issues?
Looks like A Dying GPU.
Laptop GPUs are often connected using a ball grid array, which means that there aren’t any pins and they just use a ball of solder to make the connection. If the laptop overheats enough, some of the solder may melt and move causing such issues.
This happened to my laptop that I had a long time ago. I found a guide where I took out the motherboard, wrapped it in foil except where the GPU was, then used a blow dryer to heat the solder connecting the GPU to the mobo. Worked for another six months, then it happened again, so I replaced the system.
The heat to melt solder is well above the heat made by the cores in normal operation. It’s more likely that the balls crack under stress in the heat/cooling cycles. (Also if the ball is at such a high temp, the core is likely way way higher, and that would damage the core)
GPU.
Update or rollback drivers and see if it stops.
Are you sure? The mouse cursor appears to render correctly.
GPU ram could behave like this.
A chunk of dying ram would affect sections of code allowing proper rendering of cursers over garbled backgrounds.
Also, a restart could reset the ram for a while bringing it back from the dead.
To me, it looks like defective vram. The cursor is rendered at a different physical memory location, which may still be intact.
ETA: the cursor being intact is actually very important- that quite effectively rules out the screen itself (LCD panel), since they wouldn’t care if it’s the cursor.
Are you sure this is merely mildly infuriating?
HP… What a surprise.
any chance it’s overheating? did you clean the vents and checked the fans?
My intuition is that it is a hardware failure. GPUs can develop issues that show up intermittently. You can try running GPU stress-testing software to check if that’s the case.
However, did you recently update your graphics drivers? If you did, try rolling back to an older version.
You could boot into a live system and see if the problem shows up there. If so, it’s very likely the hardware.
Does it happen faster the 2nd time around? Probably a heat issue. Make sure the fans are working and the heatsink fins are clear of dust and debris. Try that first, and run a gpu stress test https://mprep.info/gpu/ but it could also be drivers as others have mentioned, or even a faulty or incorrectly seated ram module.
Usually a sign of a dying gpu. Used to work in a laptop repair shop.
Does it continue playing sound when it does this? That supports the gpu theory if so.
Also, next time it does this see if plugging an external monitor in displays anything. If it’s the same pattern it’s probably the gpu, if not possibly monitor or cable.
I haven’t ever been playing media when it happens, so I’m not sure. Also yes, I have tried plugging in external monitors, or trying to ssh in, but none work. It’s as if the computer freezes as well.
Honestly it might still just be the SOC failing - when I worked in hardware repair most laptops had separate chips for each but now tech has progressed to have them both on one “system on a chip”. So back in my day if it was gpu the cpu might keep humming along while the gpu was fried, but that’s less relevant now-a-days.
Sorry bro, I’d say back anything you give a shit about up because she’s probably on the way out. If my experience holds, eventually it’ll artifact like this every boot and you’ll be digging out the hard drives to get at your files.
In your shoes I’d recommend fucking with the drivers and your OS, it’s still possible that it’s the drivers are interacting with the hw wrong and causing the issues, but in reality that’s a long shot. Also run memtest86 overnight one night and see if maybe its the ram?
If it does die and you’re feeling hack-y, the dude who suggested an oven reflow is not wrong. If you manage to figure out getting the motherboard out (make sure no plastic that could melt!!) and put it in the oven at reflow temp, you might revive it. If picking the laptop up and twisting the body slightly can cause the crash, it’s almost definitely soldier joint issues.
Are the fans doing anything under normal load? If it’s not moving air at all that’s cause for concern too. Dead fans mean thermal issues, which can cook chips.
I’m not unconvinced this is just a screenshot of Dwarf Fortress during some kind of weird rain storm in an evil biome.
Its an HP, never buy HP!
Which brand do you recommend
I’m probably going to look at Dell or Lenovo for a next laptop, they tend to be of higher quality. Plus old thinkpads are fast and inexpensive, so I may start looking at eBay for a good deal.
This. Especially since they still have the worst hinge designs on notebooks I’ve ever seen and they have continued to build them so shoddily for years. It must be deliberate at this point.
It is cause it makes them money. I wanted to change the battery on a family members hp laptop. I opened it and everything is glued/solder together. Told her to get a dell!
Reseat your RAM before trying a more expensive fix
The pattern looks like a GPU, more specifically a problem with VRAM.
This looks like a low to mid range HP laptop, so I question whether or not it even has dedicated graphics.
Systems with integrated graphics share RAM to use for graphics functions.
To test VRAM, one would use Nvidia MATS/MODS or AMD TServer/Memtune. They are not very accessible for the average user.
To test RAM, use Memtest86. This one is free and relatively straightforward.
is this issue also on in the bios?
yes = hardware error
no = software error
