persistent problem: titlebar overwriting/transparency and performa

[Guest]

Hi. Sticky trouble here that won't go away!

Prior to completely reformatting my machine, I had a problem with XP
originally installed on my toshiba portege r100 and upgraded to sp2. In all
windows, all of the titlebars (except the area where the
close/minimize/restore buttons are) would become transparent and not change
when I changed windows, but rather would overwrite itself and look like
gibberish For example, browsing the net in any browser would result in all
the page titles overwriting one another onto this transparent bar. message
windows would have solid white bars and take about five mins each to come to
the front. Things got very very slow and despite everything I tried my
machine became virtually unusable.

SO...I tried system restores several times, the problem recurred.
I tried reinstalling the factory system with the restore cds...the problem
recurred even without adding any other software. I figured that perhaps it
was a virus in the invisible partition area that is sometimes used for these
'system restore' things, so....
I tried repartitioning and reformatting the entire drive, reinstalling
windowsxp2 (purchased for dealing with this mess) and the poblem recurred.
However, I had made too small a partition...so I repartitioned and
reformatted again (!!!) and right now i have only xpsp2 on this machine and
it is still recurring.
why would this suddenly happen? I am starting to suspect a hardware problem,
but chkdsk etc are showing an all-clear. if it is hardware related, what
kind of hardware problem would result in this issue? i would like to figure
this out because i am at the point of pitching it out the window and getting
a new one!!! if it is a software problem, how can I go about fixing it?
much appreciate it! thank you!

 

[Jon]

Hi. Sticky trouble here that won't go away!

Prior to completely reformatting my machine, I had a problem with XP
originally installed on my toshiba portege r100 and upgraded to sp2. In
all
windows, all of the titlebars (except the area where the
close/minimize/restore buttons are) would become transparent and not
change
when I changed windows, but rather would overwrite itself and look like
gibberish For example, browsing the net in any browser would result in
all
the page titles overwriting one another onto this transparent bar.
message
windows would have solid white bars and take about five mins each to come
to
the front. Things got very very slow and despite everything I tried my
machine became virtually unusable.

SO...I tried system restores several times, the problem recurred.
I tried reinstalling the factory system with the restore cds...the problem
recurred even without adding any other software. I figured that perhaps it
was a virus in the invisible partition area that is sometimes used for
these
'system restore' things, so....
I tried repartitioning and reformatting the entire drive, reinstalling
windowsxp2 (purchased for dealing with this mess) and the poblem recurred.
However, I had made too small a partition...so I repartitioned and
reformatted again (!!!) and right now i have only xpsp2 on this machine
and
it is still recurring.
why would this suddenly happen? I am starting to suspect a hardware
problem,
but chkdsk etc are showing an all-clear. if it is hardware related, what
kind of hardware problem would result in this issue? i would like to
figure
this out because i am at the point of pitching it out the window and
getting
a new one!!! if it is a software problem, how can I go about fixing it?
much appreciate it! thank you!

Certainly sounds like a hardware problem, rather than a software problem.


Jon

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

Have you checked the manufacturer's website to ensure you have the latest drivers for your graphics
adaptor?

 

[Guest]

hi Keith, thanks for your note. When I did the system recovery install, I
had it check for updated drivers with the ´software update´. It said
everything was current. I did not check seperately from that. Perhaps I
should! I think it is probably correct, though, as the problem arose
suddenly...would a driver problem do that?
Thanks again!

Have you checked the manufacturer's website to ensure you have the latest drivers for your graphics
adaptor?

--
Good Luck,

Keith
Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]

Hi. Sticky trouble here that won't go away!

Prior to completely reformatting my machine, I had a problem with XP
originally installed on my toshiba portege r100 and upgraded to sp2. In all
windows, all of the titlebars (except the area where the
close/minimize/restore buttons are) would become transparent and not change
when I changed windows, but rather would overwrite itself and look like
gibberish For example, browsing the net in any browser would result in all
the page titles overwriting one another onto this transparent bar. message
windows would have solid white bars and take about five mins each to come to
the front. Things got very very slow and despite everything I tried my
machine became virtually unusable.

SO...I tried system restores several times, the problem recurred.
I tried reinstalling the factory system with the restore cds...the problem
recurred even without adding any other software. I figured that perhaps it
was a virus in the invisible partition area that is sometimes used for these
'system restore' things, so....
I tried repartitioning and reformatting the entire drive, reinstalling
windowsxp2 (purchased for dealing with this mess) and the poblem recurred.
However, I had made too small a partition...so I repartitioned and
reformatted again (!!!) and right now i have only xpsp2 on this machine and
it is still recurring.
why would this suddenly happen? I am starting to suspect a hardware problem,
but chkdsk etc are showing an all-clear. if it is hardware related, what
kind of hardware problem would result in this issue? i would like to figure
this out because i am at the point of pitching it out the window and getting
a new one!!! if it is a software problem, how can I go about fixing it?
much appreciate it! thank you!

 

[Guest]

I just checked, and the driver I have is the correct one.

 

[Guest]

Correction! This morning, after another crash, I got a helpful error
message. It was one of the STOP0x000000EA thread stuck in device driver
messages. the MS website suggested using the control
panel/display/settings/advanced/troubleshoot to get a new driver, which I
did. It did not resolve the problem, however, the rest of the workaround
did--turning off the video acceleration. I guess I need a new video card.
How long can I go without acceleration? I use my machine mainly for things
like web research, writing, etc--I'm not a gamer or anything like that. Id
like to try to wait till I have some money to do the repair

Thank you!\

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

I'm not an expert on hardware issues, but I think you can do just fine without acceleration. I hope
someone more knowledgeable in these areas will chime in.