Win 7 problem :(

[mic_y]

After a new install of Win 7 I have been experiencing very strange problem, which I never saw before and can't find any references about something like this on the interwebz. The problem is not catastrophic, but annoying. I'll try to describe the system configuration and the problem itself as follows:

HW (central part - still a lot of additional rubbish around):
MB: P8P67 Deluxe
CPU: i5-2500K
RAM: 8GB
Video: ATI Radeon HD5670
Monitor (s): 2 x Dell 2001FP 1600x1200 on DVI

SW:
Win 7 x64 Ultimate SP1 with all patches
All the latest drivers
A whole bunch of different apps

Issue:
On the secondary monitor in the lower part from time to time some window appears. It appears very briefly (a flash) and I have failed to identify what the window is. This does not always happen - on some boots everything is normal, for example, worked all day yesterday without these "flashes". On other boots, it keeps happening with varying intervals between occurrences. It seems that the position of the window changes and it could just crawl off-screen.

I have killed almost all the background apps but the problem still occurs. I have also disabled any non-essential services, to no avail.

In an attempt to find out what the application is, I tried to record a screen capture video using Snag-It. This produced no results, as even though I saw the flashes on the screen, in the video these were not present.

So does anybody have any ideas on what could be causing this, or how to get rid of it?

Any ideas are welcome.

 

[ruknroller]

Could be pop up ads from adware, otherwise an advertisement from a free antivirus? I remembee Avira advertising the "full version" at least once a day.

 

[LazyLion]

1) What kind of monitor screen do you have? How old is it? Where are the buttons for it located? Is anything bumping up against those buttons, or are they faulty? When you press them where does the settings screen appear? In the middle of the screen or in the same place as where you saw the flashes?

2) Check if there are any weird start-up programs listed... http://www.ehow.com/how_5215115_change-startup-programs-windows-7.html

3) Use Process Monitor to log your boot process....http://www.ghacks.net/2009/10/09/use-process-monitor-to-optimize-the-windows-boot-process/

 

[JerryMungo]

Sounds like the monitor itself is showing some sort of on screen display, not the OS if the snagit doesn't capture anything... also, it's pre boot and post boot. Have you traded places with the two monitors to see if it persists or occurs on the other monitor? What about safe mode - still doing it?
I wouldn't put it past a faulty menu switch to cause that but not my first guess. Try different refresh rate and resolution?

 

[mic_y]

hey guys, thanks for the replies...

@ruknroller: nah it is not malware/adware. The machine is running ESET fully paid for...

@Garyvdh:
1. As stated in the original post, it is 2 x Dell 2001 FP. The screens are quite old (I think in the region of 4 years). No buttons are being pushed as the are located on the front of the screen and can't be pushed accidentally, and in the flash I can clearly see that it is some windows application (can see a title bar but can't read what it says). When the buttons are pressed, yes the screen's OSD is displayed, but it is a lot smaller than the flashes that I see occuring.

2. checked in MSConfig and disabled anything that was not essential before the original post. The "flashes" still appear sometimes...

3. will try this out and report back

@moer:
It is def not the monitor's OSD. The flashes appear when windows is running at random intervals, and on some boot-ups they do not occur. on others they occur with varying frequency. Refresh is set at 60hz and resolution is the monitor's native. both monitors are connected via DVI.
I am going to investigate swapping the screens around and will report back if I figure anything out...

 

[LazyLion]

are you using Firefox? Firefox sometimes flashes up a small screen as it queues the downloads.

 

[JerryMungo]

I am going to investigate swapping the screens around and will report back if I figure anything out...

Great, let us know, at least it'll rule out (or confirm) a monitor issue.

 

[mic_y]

ok, swapped the monitors around, and still the same story...

But thanks to Garyvdh, I have managed to figure out the cause of the problem... it was indeed firefox (using DownThemAll) for downloads since FlashGet stopeed working with Rapidshare. The interesting thing is that if I disable Javascript in FF, the flashes stop...

Thanks for the help everyone, and looking forward to any other ideas (such as what download manager to use with Rapidshare...)

 

[LazyLion]

yay, I win! what do I win?