Black Circle on Laptop Monitor [ Edited ]

[marcteer]

I recently purchased a W520 with 6 GB of RAM and the Nvidia Quadro 1000M Graphics Card.

Occasionally a black circle appears in the upper left hand corner of my laptop monitor as shown in the enclosed image. Does anyone know what this is from?  It appears to go away once I restart...

Here is an(updated) link to an image showing the issue.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ilKwrvuRDH67jLaXsD9y8g?feat=directlink

Thanks in advance for your help.

Marc

[andyP Community SuperMod]

marcteer, welcome to the forum,

unfortunately your link to the image doesn't work, maybe you could check it please.

Thanks

[ColonelONeill]

You'll need to allow the photo for public viewing on Picasa.

[marcteer]

Thanks for the quick response, Andy, it is updated now.

Here is the new link.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ilKwrvuRDH67jLaXsD9y8g?feat=directlink

[ZipZap]

Hi, Marc,

    Do you get the circle when you boot into Safe Mode?

                                                   Best, ZZ

[marcteer]

Never tried actually. When I have seen this, I usually do a regular restart and it goes away...

[marcteer]

One thing I will note is that I this issue seems to have something to do with updating this machine.  I'm not 100% sure but it seems that after running windows update or updating a driver, etc, this thing appears.  Its almost like its telling me to restart.  

[ZipZap]

I'm wondering with which process it's associated. I don't suppose you tried mousing over or clicking the circle?

I would try going into task manager and terminating one process at a time to see if it disappears. That's why I suggested safe mode, because there will be a limited number of processes, and perhaps the circle won't appear at all. If safe mode makes it go away, we can start the process of elimination in normal mode.

[ColonelONeill]

There's definitely a Windows API for GetWindowAtPoint or something of the sort.

Check Task Manager. Does anything unusual show under Applications? If so, right-click, Go to Process. Then terminate it.

Alternatively, watch the Processes list, click the circle, and hit Alt+F4.

[ThorsHammer]

I nominate Camtasia.