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General discussion

XP not fully starting up

by kah5683 Jul 18, 2007 1:37AM PDT

My son's computer is not fully starting up. As it is starting up, it hesitates a LONG time on "loading personal preferences" and then when it gets past that it goes to a black screen with 20 or so thin multicolored lines spread out sporadically across the screen going from the top to the bottom. After a few seconds, this image morphs into one that is cloudy, and it seems to keep on morphing.

My first thought was a graphics card problem, but when I put in a linux livecd, it boots up fine and works perfectly with all the colors on the screen.

Any thoughts?

My son does not recall installing anything new recently.

My second thought was to do a system restore, but I wanted to check this forum first.

By the way, I CAN boot into safe mode ok.

TIA,

Kevin

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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try scanning
by tylersmiller Jul 18, 2007 1:43AM PDT

1. antivirus
2. spybot
3. ad-aware

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re: try scanning
by kah5683 Jul 18, 2007 1:53AM PDT

I ran an anti-virus scan, found 2 adware, which I deleted...looked like data miners.

Ran adaware, found 2 more data miners

Doesn't seem to be the problem.

Any other suggestion?

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kah5683
by tomron Jul 18, 2007 2:45AM PDT

System restore can't hurt,but if you take that route I would disable system restore then scan in safe mode with your AV and install,update and use AVG ANTI SPYWARE


Then scan in norm mode.Don't forget to enable SR

Tom

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oh please
by AmericanTexan9999 Jul 19, 2007 10:42AM PDT

yes it may be viruses or spyware...

but you guys are SKIPPING one of the most obvious things...


assuming that the morphing does not hinder the ability to see things on the desktop

right click the desktop and click properties

goto the settings tab and under the color make sure it says Highest(32Bit)

on the resolution slider, (all monitors are different, but for troubleshooting purposes) set it to 1024x768.

click the apply button

fixed? if not then...

click the advanced button

under the adaptor tab...find the refresh rate menu and select the lowest possible (for now)

fixed? i hope so

it may not look like it did before, but if you play around with these settings you should get it right. But be careful! Messing with these can also ruin your display adaptor and monitor....


if all these fail...or if you cannot see anything due to morphing...then here's a plan B:

when the computer starts up keep pushing F8 until a menu appears and use the arrows to select VGA Mode or simaler

if windows starts w/o morphing (yes it probably looks very big or blocky) then you know that one of the options above was changed to go beyond the specs of your computer hardware...

using the above guide you can change the options back to normal from this vga mode...when you change the options you do not have to push f8 when you start the computer again

hope this helps

if u have a q then reply

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