Nvidia video correction + static driving me insane

[creedo]

I've seen similar problems in search results but not this exactly... maybe the experts here can help.

I have a GEForce7100GS. It has an optional nvidia control panel applet that I used to ignore, but after reinstalling the OS I foolishly played with the sliders controlling brightness, gamma, etc.

Here's the problem: When I first start the video, it seemingly ignores the control panel's settings and everything is way too dark. The instant I start the applet (without touching a setting), all those corrections kick in and the video is fine. But I don't want to start the applet over and over >_<

To make things worse, when I run a game it kicks the gamma only down to 0 while leaving the rest alone. The game actually looks fine and is maybe unaffected by the video settings... but movies go back to being too dark.

Is there some kind of basic default levels that these sliders override? And if so, can I just disable that overrides and always use the default? Would removing the control panel applet do anything? Is there an alternative applet/driver that isn't like this? I mean, this one has no default button, or presets, etc. Failing that, can I get the Gamma slider to stay where it's supposed to? If not that, can I get media player classic to ignore them, so I can just rely on FFdshow to tweak things?


2nd problem:
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This wasn't happening before but now it's persistent. Movies are getting little horizontal white bands of static flickering across them. They only flash for a frame or so. They are always 1 pixel tall and then a random scattering of white pixels across the width of the video. If I pause the video and some are visible, they will gradually increase until there's a gridlike pattern of white pixels. I dunno if I can screenshot it. It's not entirely video, I am getting similar artifacts on my desktop wallpaper, tho the pixels are colored in a way that mostly blends with the surrounding pixels.

This wasn't happening before and now is, and I can't figure out what's different.

[Audionut]

2nd problem. Check the cable from your card to monitor is plugged in properly. Else I'd say the card is about to die.

[creedo]

Thanks for the suggestion on problem 2.
The cable is snug so maybe it's about to die, but that'd be weird because it's not that old and I keep it nicely cooled... the other thing I found weird is that the problem goes away if I move the hardware acceleration down a few notches.

The downside of course is that 720p movies chug if I try to do something else at the same time, tho you'd be right to wonder why I'd multitask with the movie taking up 90% of my screen :P
What do you think, is it just that my card is overworked? When I reinstalled windows, I forgot to update directx and whatnot, could that cause symptoms like this?

I reinstalled the driver and rebooted since then, and the artifacts are gone if I play a movie at full acceleration, but are still there on the desktop and my browser. I can live with it.
Hopefully the reinstalled driver has also taken care of the first issue, at least it's at the defaults I liked before.

[Audionut]

Is it overclocked? If so, set to defaults.

It sounds gone to me.

Try it in a friends comp. Or better yet, take it back to place of purchase.

[creedo]

Nope, no overclocking. It was working fine few days ago, then I had to reinstall windows (long dumb story). After that reinstall, I got these issues for the first time. So I'm convinced it must be a software thing, wrong driver etc.

Right now, here's where it's at:

I get the static and artifacts if hardware acceleration is at level 4,5,6. At level 1,2,3 everything looks fine no artifacts.

BUT I can't keep it at the lower level all the time because it's a bit chuggier on 720p movies (actually fine as long as I don't multitask) and one of my emulators won't even start. The emulator works only at level 4 or above. I notice the difference between 3 and 4 is that all directdraw and direct3d acceleration is gone at lv.3

So basically I have to change that setting every time I switch from movie watching to gaming.

I tried installing directx 9c but no difference.

I'm hoping you have another idea. It may turn out to be dying hardware after all but I want to try every software fix possible before I go there.