ahhh! whats happening to my computer?!?!

[Tifa's Real Lover(really]

my computer started going crazy today

so i was minding my own business when all of a sudden a black square got on the upper left screen, then it started growing bigger and faster, then my screen went back to normal, i was relieved, then the screen went weird again, the text and graphics started looking really messed up for no reason, and the computer went unresponsive for about a minute or 2

what the hell is happening to my computer?!?! and how can i fix it?!!?

here is a picture of how it looked like when the graphics and text went weird


http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c333/VincentIsEmo/ahhh.jpg

[Kanshisha]

It prob has something to do with your graphics card...

[Tifa's Real Lover(really]

why would there be a problem with it? its been fine for years, nothings happened to it

[Kanshisha]

Hmmm i guess but im not really a computer technician so i wont know any other way for that problem to occur...

[Dreddz]

That sounds pretty bad, run a virus scan, probably wont help but its worth a try.

[Tifa's Real Lover(really]

yeah thats the first thing i tried, didnt find anything, i really hope a virus isnt a cuase, symantec antivirus didnt find anything

any other recommendations? im in need of serious help im like freaking out =/

[o_O]

Were you trying to do anything that would have taken up the full screen at the time, like playing a game or watching a movie full screen?

A reboot would most likely fix it, but if it is indeed a virus, you'll want to update your virus definitions to the latest re-run a scan.
It may also have something to do with your graphics drivers, so you might need to update them. Hopefully your graphics card isn't dying. :p

In my best opinion, it would have been a software glitch that will probably seem to fix itself soon, if not already.

[Tifa's Real Lover(really]

nope i was IMing people and web browsing myspace and such, ill try updating my virus definitions

umm how do i check my graphics driver? or update them, how do i know its dying? sorry im a noob at computers, especially when im in panic

[rubah]

It's kinda hard to tell what's "weird" apart from the little purple square at the top from such a resized screenshot.

[o_O]

Have you tried rebooting your computer yet? I wuld definitely recommend that before anything else.

To update your graphics driver your first need to find out what graphics adapter or card you have.
To find that out, click Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager > Display Adapters, and note down what appears after the last step.

Then you need to find the appropriate graphics driver from the internet. Post the display adapter that you find above, and we can check the driver from there.

[Tifa's Real Lover(really]

i have not tried rebooting ill try it in a bit since i have to log off the computer =/

my graphics card is ATI Technologies, Inc. RAGE XL 2X

and my friend also says that my virtual memory may be running low too, is this true?


and rubah, ill have a bigger picture in a while by tomorrow atleast.

[o_O]

It's possible that virtual memory is running low, but it's not likely to have caused this problem.

I don't think you should update your drivers until you've rebooted, since updating them can cause your display to do weird stuff.

Nevertheless, your card is a legacy ATI card, legacy meaning that ATI are no longer producing new drivers for it. You can get the drivers <a href="http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/legacy-xp.html">here</a>, and you need to choose the last driver on that page.

[Kanshisha]

Have you tried rebooting your computer yet? I wuld definitely recommend that before anything else.

To update your graphics driver your first need to find out what graphics adapter or card you have.
To find that out, click Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager > Display Adapters, and note down what appears after the last step.

Then you need to find the appropriate graphics driver from the internet. Post the display adapter that you find above, and we can check the driver from there.Yes prob rebooting would help but its a huge downside...like things would be deleted...and you will need to get your INTERNET installed...

[crono_logical]

I haven't seen that since using Win98 (good 5 years ago now), and never worked out the cause since it happenned very sporadic for me :p Seemed to disappear when I installed WinXP, but it looks like you're already using WinXP :p

[ValiantKnight]

Have you tried rebooting your computer yet? I wuld definitely recommend that before anything else.

To update your graphics driver your first need to find out what graphics adapter or card you have.
To find that out, click Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager > Display Adapters, and note down what appears after the last step.

Then you need to find the appropriate graphics driver from the internet. Post the display adapter that you find above, and we can check the driver from there.Yes prob rebooting would help but its a huge downside...like things would be deleted...and you will need to get your INTERNET installed...

?
Rebooting is just turning the computer off then on...
Reinstalling is letting windows fill in files that have became corrupted and typically needs some of your programs reinstalled.
Reformatting is clearing the hard drive of EVERYTHING and starting from scratch.

[Tifa's Real Lover(really]

well yesterday before i logged off it happened again, i rebooted and today ive used it for about a good hour burning cds and such and that didnt happen...yet


heres a better picture

25029


that should look good enough rubah :p

[ValiantKnight]

Something is definitely wrong in video land with that picture. Could possibly be the driver, overheating of the video card(maybe?), cable between computer and monitor, monitor itself, software program trying to make the video card do crazy things(game with bad settings or a virus/spyware)... or a few other things. Trouble is trying to isolate and find out which one it is.

Were you recently playing a game or using any kind of software that would have lots of graphics or otherwise involve the video card a great deal more than normal internet browsing/Microsoft Word/regular windows operating when this occured? This would point to overheating or invalid settings in the game/program maybe... Or a driver issue(ie a problem with graphics acceleration... directX maybe).

If it happens all the time, regardless of what you are doing, then it is still possible it could be spyware/virus that is loaded and doesn't terminate that is doing the above, however I've never seen malware that messed with the video settings. Also if it is doing it all the time, it may be hardware/driver.

Isolating to hardware/software would help alot. But to do this we would need some sort of CD booting application. Windows XP install disc, or something else that boots from CD and doesn't require your hard drive. A simple Windows 98 startup floppy may work as well, but it may be difficult to ascertain video problems in DOS mode.

The idea is, there are multiple parts of your computer that make the video appear on your screen.

The monitor.
The monitor cord to the computer
The video card itself.
The motherboard that gives power and instructions to the card
The power supply that gives power to the motherboard.
The drivers the tell the Windows XP operating system how to control and talk to the video card.
Any programs running from that hard drive that are in RAM and are telling the motherboard > video card what to display.

The power supply or motherboard(whole, as the video slot could be bad)are unlikely.. you should be having crashes, and lots of other faults if they were going bad.
The monitor can be tested by taking your monitor to another computer, or another monitor to your computer.
The cord can be done similarly...
The video card would require opening the case, and that will void most warranties if you have one.
Same for the motherboard and power supply
The driver can be removed via what some have said in this thread, and then put back in via a downloaded drive from the manufacturer of your card.
Programs running on the hard drive can be neutralized by booting from a CD bootable software on a CD. This skips the hard drive in the boot process completely, and as long as the computer was OFF(cold boot) before you booted to the CD, no virus/malware/misconfigured program can load(per all knowledge I know of viruses/spyware) unless it is on that CD.

If the problem happens quite often, then testing each step will tell you quickly whether that is the problem or not. However if the problem is very rare(once/week) then it may take a long time to hammer out each spot as the source or not....

I may be crazy and none of these may really help, but this is all from memory and things seen over the years. But I am far from knowledgeable :)

ie, don't trust me to be right, I have been wrong before. Just trying to be helpful if possible. If another knows more, feel free to correct me.

[Tifa's Real Lover(really]

its only happened twice that has happened to this computer ever, and it was yesterday, hasnt happened today, i havent changed anything (settings, parts, etc), i just left the computer as it was, so far its all going good:)

[ValiantKnight]

If you do use a Windows XP install disc, to test if its a program on the hard drive doing it.. please don't accidently reformat your system or something :)

The point there is the XP install disc runs completely by itself, and that would eliminate any viruses/spyware/badly configured games/programs/acceleration programs if it were also bad. So by loading the Windows XP Cd into the drive and booting cold(turning the computer all the way off and back on after few seconds), you clear the ram and aren't accessing the hard drive... when you press a key to start windows XP install. It would go through a blue screen, where the CD loads its drivers into ram.. then waits for you to press enter or F8 I believe. The point being... it has loaded drivers and is displaying a screen to your monitor with no outside interference(spyware/programs/faulty drivers). And you just wouldn't want to let it reinstall windows or anything, because that first screen is good enough.


ie.. the windows XP disc has its own basic drivers.. and if it messed up with the disc in the drive running from boot(because those drivers are pretty generic and should work with ANY hardware, and have no viruses on them/etc), then we would know it would be a hardware problem more than likely.

However given the rarity of your problem, you would likely have to leave it on that screen for DAYS, since you are very rarely getting this issue.. (ie you would have to test that long from a scientific point to rule out this part as being the problem.... and testing = leaving the computer on from a different boot source than the hard drive... ie CD ROM)

The bad part is, most computers these days don't come with a Windows software disc...
They come with a "image CD" that has a ghosting type program used by the company who made your computer, so theoritically this won't work likely.

ie... if its something like "Dell software recovery" that is bad, because it's likely one screen, and it asks you yes or no.. and then starts to reformat/reinstall your system via ghosting software and an image of your hard drive when the computer was first built/installed.

So basically I just don't want you to use a bootable CD, hurt your system, then be mad at me :)
Perhaps i'm just paranoid ......

Yea I'm crazy. :(

[o_O]

That picture above is either affected by compression in the jpeg format when it was saved, or there is something wrong with either your graphics card or drivers.

The randomly scattered dots/noise around the screen seem to be arranged by colour, which would imply that there was actually another window sitting active above your desktop. For that reason and because you are using a legacy card, I'm thinking that your graphics card could be dying.

Just be aware, if you have an XP install CD, choosing the repair option will fix system drivers that would have come with it from the factory.
Note that this won't fix anything if it's a hardware problem, or a problem with a driver that was installed after Windows.
Choosing any other option will probably either delete everything, or install a second copy of Windows, which you don't want.

[Tifa's Real Lover(really]

it came back

25138


it looks even worse, i rebooted and it still came back:(