Faded pixels showing up in display

Over the last week, my 7 year old Powerbook G4 began showing faint pixels in the background which is more obvious if you are scrolling over menus also when a menu is highlighted. Unfortunately this seems to be affecting DVD playback because it will show blinking green vertical lines inside Front Row.

This image within OS X 10.5.8 will show what I mean:

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/5294/picture1qtu.png

Does this means the graphics card is failing?

Any ideas?

I was going to use TechTool Pro to try identifying the problem that is causing the distortion in the display then it tells me my copy needs updating so I downloaded the update from Micromat for it to not to work!

Hopefully you can see the pixels on the window where it says the update has failed here:

http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/4002/picture1rw.png

666sheep said:

Maybe it's just overheating (the card). Only one possible fix is to open your PB, clean all dust of innards and replace thermal pads (IIRC PB uses thermal pad instead of thermal paste). If it won't help, card is dying and solution is to reball/replace it or change entire logic board.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I will try this. I guess it's just age, I probably would be advised to get a brand new computer which is likely cheaper than repairing as my AppleCare expired 2 years ago. The thing is my computer is perfectly useable apart from playing movies in DVD Player and Front Row for some strange reason. I am not ready to let this computer go also cannot afford a new one at the moment!