My monitor is screwed up. Help!

[Bill]

Hello. I've got a problem with my monitor and would appreciate some
suggestions. Thanks. I turned on my computer and when I came back to use
it (after giving Windows 98 time to start up), the screen was flashing in
like fluorescent colors. I forget what I did but then it asked me if I
wanted to start it in safe mode. Fearing a virus, I said yes.

After it started in safe mode, I restarted it. It started okay (the grisoft
virus check ran and said there were no viruses) but the size of everything
is all big and the colors are all messed up. Before when I started it,
everything would fit on the screen at start up but now some icons that
formally were on the right side of the screen (when it started up normally)
have been pushed to the right of the screen. And all the lettering (and
everything else) is bigger than normal.

The text I see just after I turn on the computer (before Windows 98 starts)
is now shifted to the left so that the letters that start a line can not be
seen now (they're to the left of the left border of the screen) and also the
lettering has a large distorted size.

Is the driver of the monitor screwed up or what? This has happened in the
past but I forget how I fixed it. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks!

Bill

 

[kony]

Hello. I've got a problem with my monitor and would appreciate some
suggestions. Thanks. I turned on my computer and when I came back to use
it (after giving Windows 98 time to start up), the screen was flashing in
like fluorescent colors. I forget what I did but then it asked me if I
wanted to start it in safe mode. Fearing a virus, I said yes.

After it started in safe mode, I restarted it. It started okay (the grisoft
virus check ran and said there were no viruses) but the size of everything
is all big and the colors are all messed up. Before when I started it,
everything would fit on the screen at start up but now some icons that
formally were on the right side of the screen (when it started up normally)
have been pushed to the right of the screen. And all the lettering (and
everything else) is bigger than normal.

The text I see just after I turn on the computer (before Windows 98 starts)
is now shifted to the left so that the letters that start a line can not be
seen now (they're to the left of the left border of the screen) and also the
lettering has a large distorted size.

Is the driver of the monitor screwed up or what? This has happened in the
past but I forget how I fixed it. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks!

Bill

Boot normally then go into Display Properties and try to change
the resolution. If the change isn't accepted, possible, see if
the video card (display adapter) is listed correctly. Check
Device Manager to see if it shows any problems.

Had anything been changed on the system, especially during the
last time i'd booted, prior to shutting down before that first
boot that showed this problem?

 

[Bill]

Boot normally then go into Display Properties and try to change
the resolution. If the change isn't accepted, possible, see if
the video card (display adapter) is listed correctly. Check
Device Manager to see if it shows any problems.

Had anything been changed on the system, especially during the
last time i'd booted, prior to shutting down before that first
boot that showed this problem?

Thanks for replying. I went into Control Panel > Display and was able to
change the color palette from 16 colors to 256 colors. That solved the
problem of the weird colors I was seeing. Now the problem is just that
everything is too big. I guess that's a screen resolution issue but I don't
know how to change it. I don't see how to do it at Control Panel.
According to the Device Manager, the monitor is working correctly.

Another thing that's weird is that, unless I click on the Start button
(bottom left corner), I don't see the task bar. I don't know if that's a
screen resolution issue or not.

I checked Windows Help for how to change the screen resolution but didn't
see anything of use.

Any help in changing the screen resolution would be appreciated. Thanks!
(and thanks for the above reply)

Bill

 

[Grinder]

Thanks for replying. I went into Control Panel > Display and was able to
change the color palette from 16 colors to 256 colors. That solved the
problem of the weird colors I was seeing. Now the problem is just that
everything is too big. I guess that's a screen resolution issue but I don't
know how to change it. I don't see how to do it at Control Panel.
According to the Device Manager, the monitor is working correctly.

The resolution should be on the same tab where you set the color palette.

I wonder though, did you "Boot normally" as kony suggested, or are you
making this changes in "Safe mode?" If you're still in safe mode, boot
normally and try to adjust your settings again.

 

[Bill]

The resolution should be on the same tab where you set the color palette.

Thanks for replying. I've been able to get the resolution icon on the task
bar (by the clock). When I click it, I have a choice of settings. If I
choose any setting different than the one I'm presently in (where
everything's too big) which is "640 x 480, 256 color", strange things
happen.

For example, the next choice is "800 x 600, 256 color." If I choose that,
then the screen gets totally distorted, like the screen is a part of a
sphere rather than a flat surface. Why does it look like that?

I wonder though, did you "Boot normally" as kony suggested, or are you
making this changes in "Safe mode?" If you're still in safe mode, boot
normally and try to adjust your settings again.

Apparently I'm not in Safe mode because according to Windows 98 Help, when
I'm in Safe mode I don't have access to my printer or CD player. I just
tried to print a one sentence MS Word document and it printed okay so I must
not be in Safe mode.

This is a frustrating problem. Any further help by anyone would be
appreciated. Thanks.

Bill

 

[Grinder]

Bill wrote:

[snip]

Thanks for replying. I've been able to get the resolution icon on the task
bar (by the clock). When I click it, I have a choice of settings. If I
choose any setting different than the one I'm presently in (where
everything's too big) which is "640 x 480, 256 color", strange things
happen.

For example, the next choice is "800 x 600, 256 color." If I choose that,
then the screen gets totally distorted, like the screen is a part of a
sphere rather than a flat surface. Why does it look like that?

I wish I could tell you. kony earlier asked a good question:

Had anything been changed on the system, especially during the
last time [you]'d booted, prior to shutting down before that first
boot that showed this problem?

 

[kony]

Thanks for replying. I've been able to get the resolution icon on the task
bar (by the clock). When I click it, I have a choice of settings. If I
choose any setting different than the one I'm presently in (where
everything's too big) which is "640 x 480, 256 color", strange things
happen.

For example, the next choice is "800 x 600, 256 color." If I choose that,
then the screen gets totally distorted, like the screen is a part of a
sphere rather than a flat surface. Why does it look like that?

It looks like that because it's defaulting to a very low refresh
rate. For the time being, ignore the icon next to the clock and
work from the Display Properties page, accessible from Control
Panel or right-clicking on the desktop and choosing "Properties",
then the "settings" tab. On that tab you should see the colored
bar on the middle-left side, where the bit depth changes are
(where you changed to 256 colors previously).

To the right of that is the "Screen Area" slider, which can be
moved to the right towards "More". Set it to the resoution you'd
previously used. If unsure of previous resolution (and your
monitor is at least 17" size) try 1024x768. After changing to
1024x768, click the "Advanced" button, then the "Monitor" tab (in
Win 2k or XP) or "Adapter" tab in (win98 ?). The refresh rate
setting drop-down menu can be used to set highest refresh rate
the monitor will support. If refresh rate is set too high and
monitor can't display anything, hit the <ESCAPE> key and choose a
lower refresh rate. Monitor's display may not be all the way to
edge of screen at best refresh rate, but choose best rate anyway,
THEN use monitor's physical controls or on-screen-display menu to
get image centered and stretched to edge of monitor.


If all else fails, go into Device Manager and in Display Adapter,
use the Update (or replace) driver option to manually choose
"Standard VGA" driver, then reboot system, then proceed to
install the correct video driver for the video card. From what
you've written so far, that should NOT be necessary, but I
mention it anyway as the final step in removing all associations
to the current display adapter settings and reverting to original
values.... at which point you'd again need to set color and
resolution, refresh rate.

 

[Bill]

Bill wrote:

[snip]

Thanks for replying. I've been able to get the resolution icon on the task
bar (by the clock). When I click it, I have a choice of settings. If I
choose any setting different than the one I'm presently in (where
everything's too big) which is "640 x 480, 256 color", strange things
happen.

For example, the next choice is "800 x 600, 256 color." If I choose that,
then the screen gets totally distorted, like the screen is a part of a
sphere rather than a flat surface. Why does it look like that?

I wish I could tell you. kony earlier asked a good question:

Had anything been changed on the system, especially during the
last time [you]'d booted, prior to shutting down before that first
boot that showed this problem?

Thanks for replying. No I hadn't changed anything. I turned it on and
while it was getting started, at some point the monitor starts flashing this
weird image with the screwed up colors (which was corrected when I went from
16 to 256 colors) that fills the entire screen. I thought I had some virus
but the grisoft AV program says I don't and haven't seen a flashing image
since then.

--

Also, before proceeding, you should make sure that your cables are
properly seated onto their ports. The video cable in particular, should
not be kinked or tightly tangled.

I checked and they weren't. Thanks.

Bill

 

[Bill]

It looks like that because it's defaulting to a very low refresh
rate. For the time being, ignore the icon next to the clock and
work from the Display Properties page, accessible from Control
Panel or right-clicking on the desktop and choosing "Properties",
then the "settings" tab. On that tab you should see the colored
bar on the middle-left side, where the bit depth changes are
(where you changed to 256 colors previously).

To the right of that is the "Screen Area" slider, which can be
moved to the right towards "More". Set it to the resoution you'd
previously used. If unsure of previous resolution (and your
monitor is at least 17" size) try 1024x768. After changing to
1024x768, click the "Advanced" button, then the "Monitor" tab (in
Win 2k or XP) or "Adapter" tab in (win98 ?).

Thanks for replying. I did all what you said. I chose the next resolution
setting (800 x 600) which seems to be working (everything seems a bit small
but that's probably because I was working for days with everything too big).
But at least the screen doesn't look like a sphere so changing the refresh
rate must have fixed that. Thanks for the idea.

The refresh rate
setting drop-down menu can be used to set highest refresh rate
the monitor will support.

I had only two choices: "optimal" or "adapter default." It had been on
"adapter default" so I changed it to "optimal."

If refresh rate is set too high and
monitor can't display anything, hit the <ESCAPE> key and choose a
lower refresh rate. Monitor's display may not be all the way to
edge of screen at best refresh rate, but choose best rate anyway,
THEN use monitor's physical controls or on-screen-display menu to
get image centered and stretched to edge of monitor.


If all else fails, go into Device Manager and in Display Adapter,
use the Update (or replace) driver option to manually choose
"Standard VGA" driver, then reboot system, then proceed to
install the correct video driver for the video card. From what
you've written so far, that should NOT be necessary, but I
mention it anyway as the final step in removing all associations
to the current display adapter settings and reverting to original
values.... at which point you'd again need to set color and
resolution, refresh rate.

Seems to be working fine. Really appreciate your help (and Grinder's).

Take care,

Bill

 

[NN]

Hello. I've got a problem with my monitor and would appreciate some
suggestions. Thanks. I turned on my computer and when I came back
to use it (after giving Windows 98 time to start up), the screen was
flashing in like fluorescent colors. I forget what I did but then it
asked me if I wanted to start it in safe mode. Fearing a virus, I
said yes.

After it started in safe mode, I restarted it. It started okay (the
grisoft virus check ran and said there were no viruses) but the size
of everything is all big and the colors are all messed up.

I have had this happen before on a couple computers that had Grisoft's free
version of AVG virus scanner in it. AVG also load an avgserv (just go
CTRL-ALT-DEL in windows to bring up the task manager and you'll see it
listed). With some older and/or not-so-great quality video cards and/or
drivers, you will have this problem. I'm not sure exctly WHY this happens
but I have narrowed this type of thing down to just that. Good thing you
mentioned you used the grisoft software. You can still use it and get the
video to work peacefully. Just that when this happens, you'll have to go
into safe mode, pick the NEXT to Lowest resolution and 256 colors, reboot,
go back and set for like the next to highest you use, reboot then go back
again and set your resolution to what you normally use and the amount of
colors you normally use. I found you have to kinda set things in that order
for the video card drivers to finally show you the higher resolutions, even
(at least on some computers it happens this way). Are you sure you have the
most recent drivers for your video card? That may also help.

That's not to say the problem is fixed permanently. When Windows loads,
sometimes things load at different times than they did in the previous boot.
Even if you never changed a thing, you can still have problems when you boot
into windows if some things are loaded at the same time or before or even
after something else. Because things aren't really loaded at the same times
they are in previous boots, wierd things can happen when they didn't before.
I don't know how/why it does that, but I've seen it happen just watching
what loads into my system tray, for example, each time I boot up, and the
order it loads in.

The only thing I can suggest is to get the latest video drivers installed
and cross your fingers. One machine I had overhauled and prepared for
someone, it did that only when I first installed the OS, but was fine after.
Another machine it did that at random (but very rare) intervals. I haven't
had it happen on my current computer, however.