Do I have to reinstall when this happens?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Matt Gregory
  • Start date Start date
M

Matt Gregory

Here's the story:

My computer was running fine for two years, then one day
Visual Studio started acting strangely. The linker started
giving me access violations all of a sudden and the toolbar
buttons were not being drawn correctly. So I decided to do
some system maintenance. I defragged the drive (first time
in two years I ever did that) and installed the updates that
came out March 4, I believe it was.

Now I have this problem: My computer runs very slowly now,
but it only seems to affect the drawing of windows and
standard controls like buttons and scroll bars. It flickers
very badly and leaves huge blotches of gray as it tries to
redraw things. Everything else seems to be fine, though.
I scanned for viruses and looked for them with a few utilities,
but nothing seems out of the ordinary. I even uninstalled
most of my programs trying to figure this out.

What can I do to figure out what is causing this?

Thanks!
Matt Gregory
 
Hi Matt,

I'd be more inclined to wonder about your graphics card than thinking
Windoze is causing your screen problems. Does you card have a fan on it?
Is it clean and running?

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Matt Gregory said:
Here's the story:

My computer was running fine for two years, then one day
Visual Studio started acting strangely. The linker started
giving me access violations all of a sudden and the toolbar
buttons were not being drawn correctly. So I decided to do
some system maintenance. I defragged the drive (first time
in two years I ever did that) and installed the updates that
came out March 4, I believe it was.

Now I have this problem: My computer runs very slowly now,
but it only seems to affect the drawing of windows and
standard controls like buttons and scroll bars. It flickers
very badly and leaves huge blotches of gray as it tries to
redraw things. Everything else seems to be fine, though.
I scanned for viruses and looked for them with a few utilities,
but nothing seems out of the ordinary. I even uninstalled
most of my programs trying to figure this out.

What can I do to figure out what is causing this?

Thanks!
Matt Gregory

My guess is that Windows Update installed a new driver for your graphics
sybsystem. NEVER allow Windows Update to install a hardware driver, ALWAYS
get hardware drivers from the manufacturer of the hardware.

Go to the website of the manufacturer of your video card, download and
install the latest video driver from them.
 
PA20Pilot said:
Hi Matt,

I'd be more inclined to wonder about your graphics card than thinking
Windoze is causing your screen problems. Does you card have a fan on it?
Is it clean and running?

Thanks for the reply. It's not the card as I've started migrating to
another hard drive and it runs like a champ on that one.

Matt Gregory
 
Colon said:
My guess is that Windows Update installed a new driver for your graphics
sybsystem. NEVER allow Windows Update to install a hardware driver, ALWAYS
get hardware drivers from the manufacturer of the hardware.

Go to the website of the manufacturer of your video card, download and
install the latest video driver from them.

Yeah, I didn't install any drivers, unless it was by accident. Plus, I
already tried upgrading the video driver but it had no effect. I think
it must be some driver in there acting up, but I don't know which one.
Maybe I should try removing all the devices from the system and let
Windows redetect them.

Matt Gregory
 
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