Multi images on screen - ok in safe mode

Sorry if this is in the wrong thread.

Situation: Sisiter in law's Compaq 6000 with XP. My wife was at her place (200 miles away) and asked if I could look at her computer as "it just won't start right". I asked if they had made any changes and she said her daughter attempted to load some sort of video program on it, but no idea what; possibly something to record videos with? I don't know.

Anyway, I thought it was probably something that could be fixed with a system restore, but I knew better than to talk her through it over the phone, so my wife brought me the tower. I hooked it up to junk I had on hand.

Turn the computer on, all looks right. Windows XP Home Edition screen comes on, then there's a bit of static on the screen, just a flash, and then this is what shows up:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v729/ksdaddy/screenweirdness.jpg

I shut it down, restart it, repeatedly hitting the F10 key. I get it to safe mode and all looks perfect. I'm able to navigate around no problem. I went to add/remove programs to see if I could get rid of the apparently offending program, and there's nothing that shows having been installed in several months.

I do a system restore to no avail.

I went into msconfig (or configsys, whichever one it was) and shut everything off, same results.

Since all works well in safe mode, I'm assuming it's something in the boot or startup that's making it go crazy?

And no, I don't have a restore disc.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

Did you check the display settings or try the trouble shooter in display. Not really clear if this is the "just won't start right problem" is this the same problem she was having?

 

The refresh rate or resolution is set too high. Boot in safe mode, go into the Device Manager (click Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager) and make note of the video driver by clicking on the plus sign next to Display Adapters. Now, (still in safe mode), right click on the display adapter and select Uninstall. Reboot in normal mode. The PC should detect and reload the driver for the display adapter. If not, go to the web site of the display adapter manufacturer (usually either Intel, ATI, or NVidia) and download and install the appropriate driver. If you're using on board (AKA built in) video, you may have to go to the PC maker's web site (HP.com, Dell.com, whatever) and download the driver from there. If you run into any problems, re-post, and we'll be happy to help...........

hd2k

 

I'd have to say I agree with hopperdave; it looks like the driver for the video card needs sorting out. Perhaps the video program she tried to install played havoc with the driver or some video settings.

This type of problem is typical of wrong or mucked up drivers for video cards or monitors. It used to happen quite frequently to me each time I started up a computer I had with a dead battery about 8 years ago because it kept losing the information about the monitor rather than the video card, if I remember correctly.

The cure is usually just as hopperdave said, remove the video card driver and reinstall it. This will also force a reinstallation of the monitor driver which may be the one needing replacing. Switching monitors often causes the problem that you have if the computer continues to try and use the old monitor drivers. Has she changed to a different monitor around the same time?

 

See that's just it! Since it was 200 miles away I really don't know how the original problem manifested itself. My wife claims she didn't see any weirdness on the screen like I was (the multiple images) but that there were popup error messages and it just wouldn't respond. Understand, these people are even more illiterate than I am computer-wise.

She only sent me the tower and I hooked it up to an old OLD monitor from the garage. Maybe the multi images were related to that and that alone.

Seems funny though, that the screen looked 100% normal while starting up, or when choosing safe mode (the 1985 black DOS like screen) and also the black screen with the Windows XP logo. Only once it hit the Welcome screen did it go to fuzzy poop.

Regardless, I did what hopperdave said and it works perfectly, image-wise. Thanks! I think now I should call her and determine exactly what the original problem was! Since I'm not getting any error messages, nor delays, nor overall weirdness, it's very possible that "that" problem was solved with the system restore I did in the first place.

 

When the computer is started in Safe Mode, it doesn't use the "right" drivers; it uses some basic drivers that aren't likely to cause any problems whatsoever. That's why you didn't have any problems in Safe Mode or the black DOS screen. But you mentioned a "a bit of static on the screen, just a flash" which I would be guessing about but perhaps looked like a band across the screen of rainbow colouring? Is that roughly what it looked like? I found that that's quite common to see if the monitor driver doesn't match the installed monitor.

Yes, I sympathise! Trying to get information from people less computer savvy than you can be an interesting experience to say the least! I thought perhaps you might be emailing and would ask.

Something that could be a good idea before sending the computer back is to uninstall the monitor and then shut down the computer. When it gets back to the owner, there will be NO installed monitor, forcing the owner's monitor to be installed the first time the computer is started up again on their monitor. This will stop any possibility of monitor driver problems. It shouldn't be a problem on an XP installation but given the 200km distance, could be worth it! If you forget, it shouldn't be too hard to talk the owner through restarting the computer in Safe Mode. (Although you try to avoid it usually, "switch off at the wall and then wait one minute before turning on again" is a good first instruction for the non-savvy who can't see to shut down!) You can also leave a set of instructions on the hard drive to help them uninstall the monitor driver and then restart normally if they have any problems. If you use NotePad, there'll be no trouble reading the instructions and you can take some screenshots of how to do it, paste them into Paint and then save them as jpg and the owner will be able to look at those too. As I said, this should be unnecessary for XP but the fact we must face is that it IS a computer we're dealing with - they aren't known for predictability!!