Windows 98 colour loss and poor picture quality

Hi all. I am John, new to the forum and unfortunately not at all computer 'minded' when it comes to a problem, so, can somebody help me please?

Our old PC runs windows 98se, and has decided to loose its colour and picture clarity. There are still some colours there, but its like even those have lost their depth. The pictures seem very 'grainy', like the pixels are far to large, and the image is difficult to see. When the machine starts up though, the windows logo 98 comes up fine, with the right colours and clarity, but after that everything alters.

The PC has a standard VGA graphics card, and when the main screen comes up with the 'icons', i get a message saying ' youmust be running 256 colour mode or higher. I am unable to alter this via the control panel, the adjuster wont work. The motherboard has the following on it;FC Canada close class B ICE5, EA00D009323332 and P8HC006604.

Please help, bearing in mind that I would sincerely appreciate simple and easy to follow instructions.

thanks very much,

John

 

I am thinking that you need to reinstall your video card drivers. To find out what kind of video card you have, go to control panel->system->hardware->device manager->video adapters(or something like that) then open up the thing inside the video adapter and it should tell you what your video card is. Go to the card manufacturer's website and look up your video card and download the driver for it.

 

Hi and thank you. The graphic card is a standard PCI (VGA). I am unable to find a site for VGA at all. The mother board is a ECS by Elite group systems. I cant find a suitable driver on their site either. can you suggest anything else please? I really struggle with these sort of things, as I have the medical condition M.E. (or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) so all help sincerely appreciated.

Many thanks,

John

 

You can also try and go to the properties page, click on the drivers tab and do a rollback to your previous driver which was working. i just thought of that

 

Unfortunately, Windows 98SE does not have a driver rollback option like Windows XP.

However, Microsoft have provided a troubleshooter for display problems at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/127139

 

Hi Folks, any further thoughts on this one please? I am sure in the past it was a 'lost' driver that needed to be reinstated. Can anyone tell me where to look for this driver download please using the motherboard info that I have supplied earlier in this thread? I have tried to find the VGA site to no avail. Please help, this thing is driving me nuts!!

Many thanks,

John

 

You can also try going into the device manager and then deleting the video card and the next time your computer starts up it should automatically find the drivers. I think you can also find your motherboard drivers if you look in the device manager. If not, you can download aida32 from MG.

 

Name and model number?
If not that, what is the name and model of the computer?

If you do not know how to determine this, download Belarc Advisor http://www.majorgeeks.com/Belarc_Advisor_d1385.html
and run it.
On page 1 it will state what your video card is.
It's a good idea to print out all the pages. That way when anyone asks for the specs of the computer, you grab the papers and start looking.

 

This sounds very typical of a video card failure, at least the one's I've had fail. Plus being 98SE, figure it has some age on it as well. Might save you a lot of trouble to pick up a cheap "o" video card at Walmart or Target. Depending on you video use of course.

 

To find out the correct driver you need to find out the manufacturer of the graphics card. Right click on My Compuer>Properties>Device Manager then click on the plus sign next to Display Adapters This should give you a clue as to the make of the card. Then you would need to Google for driver using that name along with the word driver and you should be successful finding one (If you add win98se to the search criteria that would also help narrow down the search).