Black or White bars at top or bottom of screen

Anonymous
2018-06-18T23:22:01+00:00

Hi all, 

I am technician at an IT company and we are pulling out our hair over an issue with one of our clients using Google Calendar.

They are 2 users, both using different computers, both running the latest version of Windows 10 and Chrome.

The symptoms happen at different times on both machines. The symptoms can vary but are generally a form of bar on the top or bottom of the browser. They have to restart the computer for the issue to disappear. They can work around it by reducing the screen size from full screen, to something slightly smaller.

We have tried Firefox, Edge and Chrome Canary with same symptoms, updating all drivers, BIOS, re installation of the OS and still issues are occurring. We originally thought the issues were graphics related, but they seem to only be happening when in Google Calendar. Seems like an OS bug? 

We have also turns hardware acceleration off in the browsers.

I have included some screenshots as well. The black bars at the top began in Firefox on Google Calendar and have penetrated other windows that have been placed on top (Acrobat in this example). 

We are using an Intel NUC and a Laptop.

Any advise would be most appreciated.

Regards, Sam

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Performance and system failures

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Anonymous
2019-03-26T15:04:26+00:00

Hello everyone,

You can use the shortcut CONTROL + SHIFT + WIN + B to reset the graphics adapter on affected machines. This will get rid of the white/black bars without navigating through menus. 

All the fixes I've seen (Intel graphics panel, reboot computer, change resolution, etc) just reset the graphics driver anyway. For example, when you change the resolution on a computer, the monitor(s) shuts off for a moment and then comes back up. This is because the graphics adapter reset.

I don't have a permanent fix unfortunately, but this is a quick band-aid fix that takes less than a second when you see this problem occurring. I've observed this problem over the last ~6 months and am disappointed that some of my organization's fully updated computers (Windows 10 1809 with all updates as of March 26th, 2019) still display this problem. 

Thanks.

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Anonymous
2021-11-30T00:53:12+00:00

Solved! After a few years of just accepting this problem, a tech guy at Best Buy found the answer. He worked on it for an hour or so and voila! In google chrome (chrome://extensions), he eliminated the extension on stock tracker program and the bar is now GONE! I had the same problem on my other computer so I made that change and it's gone! Hopefully, that or something similar will work for everyone else who has suffered with this problem. Good luck!

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-02-14T22:03:17+00:00

    We permanently ressolved  the issue for affected users, was not an ideal solution but it works. Microsoft / Intel are useless. We replaced any affected users machine with a non Intel chipset. Would I be correct in assuming this issue is affecting only intel chipsets? Anyone else seen this issue on another Platform? The issue is directly related to Window Scaling and seems to appear with a certain set of programs not playing nicely with scaling. In some instances the issue can be ressolved by toggling the advanced scaling option but not always. Go figure? 

    I'm experiencing this problem and I do have Intel inside.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-02-14T22:01:25+00:00

    I have the exact same issue with a Lenovo laptop with a nvidia graphics card and a external monitor hooked up. The laptop screen never gets the bar but the external monitor does.

    Downgrade driver version 21.20.16.4542 and fix.

    Which driver? The graphics card driver? I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T480 with two Dell monitors hooked up through a Lenovo ThinkPad USB-C dock. I don't think I have an nvidia graphics card, but I'm still experiencing the same thing.

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