Why do These Black Boxes Appear in Windows 7, and How Can I Prevent Them?

Question

Seemingly randomly, black boxes begin to appear on many of the programs I have open. Here's what they look like:

Photoshop:

foobar2000:

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When I restart my computer, the boxes go away. I have yet to find the source of these boxes. How do I prevent these things from appearing?

Solution 1

Make sure your graphics card isn't overheating. You can use speccy to check the temperature. Make sure all the fans are spinning in your computer and that none of them are clogged with dust. A steady increase in the number of black boxes after startup might be explained by a steady increase in heat that isn't being blown away.

Solution 2

This looks like a problem with your graphics card.
Since they don't appear immediately, I would assume a problem with the driver.

Try removing and reinstalling the drivers with the latest version from AMD.

Comments

[RobinJ]

What graphic card do you have and which driver?

[Jeff Gortmaker]

Radeon HD 6870. Current driver version: 8.850.0.0

[Garrett]

Definitely looks like graphics artifacting. I would ensure your drivers are up to date and that your card is working properly (e.g. not overheating).