Computer screen help please

[Shaman]

Two days ago my computer started acting up. The screen would “remember” a previous program, and parts of it would stay when changing programs. Yesterday it got worse, and would sometimes not boot up with the screen working, or would boot up, get very messy, and then Blue Screen me and shut down. Last night I dumped some stuff to an external, and reinstalled the laptop drivers. It seemed to help. When the screen is messy, the S-video out is also messy, and the opposite holds true. When things get messy, and an icon doesn’t show up correctly, if I click on it it shows up clear. I tried booting three times today, the first two didn’t work right, and this one has had no problems, and I have been up for about 15 minutes. AVG and Defender haven’t showed anything wrong, and HP just said send it in, your monitor is bad. I would have to mail it to my parents, then they would send it to HP, then HP would send it back, then my parents would send it back. Not a good time frame in my opinion. I kinda want to get it worked out because I need the computer for work and play.

I am going to run a scandisk when defender is done, and if I can get stuff dumped off the HD onto the external, I will reformat with the original disk.

I still haven't ruled out a virus, and beign that I haven't had a chance to change myself from Admin for everyday, I am kinda asking for it.

 

[brianl703]

That really does sound like a hardware problem, especially if the screen isn't working right from boot-up.

 

[Shaman]

Sometimes it will boot up to the screen, but about 20% of the timeit will shut down and restart. It had gotten more stable until I started typing this, and the screen just started turning on, half on, then off, then back, rotating through the option. I can still type just fine, but the screen is being buggy.

So, Briand, do you think it is a video card or monitor problem?

 

[brianl703]

Sounds like the video card. Especially if the s-video output is also screwy.

 

[Matt_S]

I second the video card diagnosis. We recently had two of the capacitors burst on a video card in one of our computers at work. The system booted and ran, but was very screwy sometimes and wouldn't function, and would actually blue screen the computer, in certain modes. Given this is a laptop, it probably calls for a motherboard replacement.

 

[brianl703]

The magical Chinese self-destructo-matic capacitors. http://www.badcaps.net has all of the gory details...

 

[Matt_S]

Brian, that site is very interesting. I never knew that was such a common problem. On this video card I mentioned, the top of two caps was split open right at the seam of that cross in the top of the caps.

 

[Oldmoparguy1]

If this is an HP laptop, then there is no memory card as such. The video processor is on the motherboard and shares video memory with main memory. What it sounds like is you are running out of memory. Actually, most low end PC's ar the same way. I can make this happen If I have too many programs open at once, although It's rare since I upgraded to XP pro. Any way, if you haven't installed the latest updates, and you'r running XP home edition, you should do so.

The most likely cause is a bad memory chip. Sometimes, just reseating it will fix it. Hope this helps.

 

[Oldmoparguy1]

Darn, did it again.