OT Puter guru needed...maybe not....

[STINGER]

ok peeps, last night my puter is acting sluggish, I am getting nasty spikes...etc.

i think....try system restore (it has worked when things went flaky before) so I do so.

After the restore my screen goes nutz, and goes into the "wavey" pattern but i can still see everything but the wave wont let me read anything. Slowly the waves go aways, and now my desktop and programs have this "hourglass" look to them. The screen is crystal clear and looks great except for the "miss shappenness" of everything. The "start button is off sceen and so are the running progs on the right.

So i am thinking hum.....screen setting, so i try all those little fine adjusts of shifting, scaling, trapizod...etc and nothing really does any good.

i tried all the different screen settings in control pannel and nothing helps and was gettign late so i quit and went to bed.

Thought is that my "E" Machines Screen (pissed me off) that was suppplied with my Alienware kick butt machine is a POS in disguse and has croaked on me. What you think?

My intentions for tonight are to swap my screen from my HP to this one and see if it works properly and if so then conclude the screen has indeed taking a dump.

Are there any other possibilities?

it is very strange, i mean I can clearly see everything, it is just total out of propotion to normal, I can even play DII, but it is liek looking into those mirrors at the carnival......you know, the tall skinny, short fat ones.....

Thoughts...help....chuckles???

[ruslan74]

1. u noticed any "new" suspicious programs running in background?

2. Check your CPU utilization, that no other process is running it other than System Idle...

3. Check your startup services and devices, run MSCONFIG if you have XP

4. Your PC patched up against all the other XP/WIN 2K exploits?

Dont know what else to add right now.... hope it helps...

[viamede]

Having built two PC's from scratch that were supposed to burn baby burn but ran like grade 4 potato electricity experiments...(one was chopped and ebayed other is used for younger son's internet access) I obviously know just enough to be dangerous around a computer. That warning aside...I wonder about video drivers. Mine were pooched when I installed windows update drivers for my card and had to go back de-install and re-install Dell endorsed drivers. Still have to do it now and again.

[STINGER]

I automatically get alerts on updates for windows so i should be up to date there.

i run this prog (forget name) that finds foreign crap and quarantines it and I run it regularly, it was recommended here.

I am basically in the same shoes as Viamede, I know enuff to get into trouble but I also know enuff not to say yes to what I dont understand.

Although a new screen costs money, I wish someone would of came in and said, ya I have seen this, your screen has crapped out as at least that is something i am confident in fixing as with the lovely world of plug and play i can do that stuff easy!!! Ya money loss sucks, but to me forgoing time loss and flustration by spending some cash is worth it.

When crap like this happens I cuss my son under my breath for not getting into puters even though i have had them around him for almsot his entire life. Most 12 yr olds probably know how to totally dissassemble and start for scratch on these things.

Damnit why didnt i go into Computer Engineering or somehting?

[viamede]

Yes windows updates were the problem for me as I installed the non-critical ones, something to be avoided I learned. I would try the updated video drivers from your computer makers website, if they have them. If not try the card manufacturer. I would think that's the most likely if it's not your monitor, but I guess you'll know that tonight when you switch monitors.

[Khianna]

No access to another monitor? Old one that is in storage but still worked when you put it there. Or a friend that has one. Could just plug another one in to see if it works, or take your box to where a monitor is you could use.

What I always ended up doing, was going and buying what I thought it was, like a new monitor, with the best intentions of taking it back if it didn't fix the problem, but then I would keep it becuase it was better than what I had. Ended up with full upgrades to computers doing this. A costly solution, which I still haven't decided if it was a good thing or not. :lol:

Bad motherboard, oh, I need new RAM and Processor too.

[Geniuz[TUW]]

you can try installing the newest drivers (never hurts)

[STINGER]

My lazy arse didnt try the other monitor.


I screwed around a bit wiht it, finally set it to 800x600 and the "misshaped" appearance was a lot les noticable. So I just spent my time last night playing as I figure tonight, or Saturday i have a bunch of extra time to mess with things.

Main reason I didnt try other screen as it was being used for a pretty important situation.........oh well.

[CoonerTheRed]

yeah, try uninstalling/reinstalling video drivers. If the screen is in good shape, (ie, the picture still looks pretty) i would guess it's a software thing, not a hardware thing. But trying a new monitor couldn't hurt either... look around- you can usually get ahold of an old one dirt cheap (read $10 or free) from a garage sale or a buddy with one buried in his garage.

[monad]

If the monitor looked ok before u did "something" then its not broken just pissed off. My suggestion is to blow out the harddrive and start from scratch. I do this on my comps using windows products about every 6 months. That restore crap doesnt work so abandon the concept. Get your neighbors 12 year old to help u blow it out if u never did it before but its really rather simple (most peeps are just scared they will never get it running agin).

[MoUsE_WiZ]

If it went nuts after the system restore, undo the restore maybe?
Or at least I think system restores are reversible anyways.

[kurg]

For bizzare hourglass shapee screen it most likely sounds like a monitor problem. If it were me, I'd tackle things in this order.

1) Try adjusting the monitor via the buttons/menu on the monitor. Try the degauss option if its available as well.

2) Also try swapping monitors with a known good one - or put this 'bad' one on a known good computer.

3) Lastly, it could be a vidcard/driver issue, but that would be that last thing I'd try.