Bad videocard on older iBook?
Is it possible for a bad videocard to still pass the hardware test CD? A persistent curiosity I have had with my iBook is that on certain internet browsers and applications, I get glitchy screen artifacts on select elements. I've reinstalled/updated those applications, but the glitchy screen elements remain. My laptop passes all of the hardware tests on that disc included with the installer discs. So what do you suppose is going on?
Is there some fault in the hardware that cannot be detected via hardware test? Is the problem in the OS, itself?
The screen glitch often appears as a pattern of black and colored stripes that often obstruct any text that would appear normally on a screen element. Right now, on this post thread screen, the animated smiley gifs are muddled in a black and colored pixels.
I've always suspected something overheated and crisped the GPU to become glitchy but not dead, as that is seemingly how my G3 iBook went out. However, I don't really know what is going on with this G4 iBook. I know the fan works. I've seen it run on rare occasion on some persistent task at 100% CPU has occurred. I don't have any reason to believe it ran outside of its safety envelope.
Any thoughts?
(Further examples...Safari works fine, but Firefox has glitches. Finance (what I use to reconcile my checkbook) has glitches that come and go depending on what screen I am at. A great majority of other apps I use work just fine.)
Is there some fault in the hardware that cannot be detected via hardware test? Is the problem in the OS, itself?
The screen glitch often appears as a pattern of black and colored stripes that often obstruct any text that would appear normally on a screen element. Right now, on this post thread screen, the animated smiley gifs are muddled in a black and colored pixels.
I've always suspected something overheated and crisped the GPU to become glitchy but not dead, as that is seemingly how my G3 iBook went out. However, I don't really know what is going on with this G4 iBook. I know the fan works. I've seen it run on rare occasion on some persistent task at 100% CPU has occurred. I don't have any reason to believe it ran outside of its safety envelope.
Any thoughts?
(Further examples...Safari works fine, but Firefox has glitches. Finance (what I use to reconcile my checkbook) has glitches that come and go depending on what screen I am at. A great majority of other apps I use work just fine.)