Garbled display after MS updates

[Guest]

I accepted the "Express" download of all applicable MS updates. After the
restart, the display was terrible. Nothing is clear, colors bleed over each
other, photos look like color negatives, input windows on Search are blacked
out, paragraphs in Word black out when keystrokes are input and the
resolution is abysmal.
The resolution defaults to 640 x 480 and changes to it have no effect.
Lowering the hardware acceleration has no effect, nor does any of the steps
in display troubleshooting. I can't allow any power saver scheme turn off the
monitor because I have to cold boot to reopen the display.
I have XP / SP2 on a P4 @ 2.66GHz.
The display adapter is a Nvidea GeForce4 MX420. Device Mgr says it is
working properly. The web update says there is no later driver.
Please help.

 

[PD43]

Please help.

Hint: System Restore

 

[Guest]

Thanks. Unfortunately, during the time it took me to research this problem, a
lot of (unrelated) emails have been sent & received. Will these be lost with
a System Restore?

 

[GreenieLeBrun]

I accepted the "Express" download of all applicable MS updates. After the
restart, the display was terrible. Nothing is clear, colors bleed over
each
other, photos look like color negatives, input windows on Search are
blacked
out, paragraphs in Word black out when keystrokes are input and the
resolution is abysmal.
The resolution defaults to 640 x 480 and changes to it have no effect.
Lowering the hardware acceleration has no effect, nor does any of the
steps
in display troubleshooting. I can't allow any power saver scheme turn off
the
monitor because I have to cold boot to reopen the display.
I have XP / SP2 on a P4 @ 2.66GHz.
The display adapter is a Nvidea GeForce4 MX420. Device Mgr says it is
working properly. The web update says there is no later driver.
Please help.

Roll back the driver to an earlier version.

Right click on "My Computer" select "Properties", select "Hardware", click
"Device Manager", expand "Display adaptors", right click on the adaptor and
select "Properties", select the "Driver"tab and click on Roll Back Driver.

If that doesn't work try reinstalling your video card driver.

 

[Guest]

Wahoo! That did it! Thanks a bunch!

 

[Rock]

Wahoo! That did it! Thanks a bunch!

Here's some more info. Never get hardware driver updates from windows
update. You should examine all updates before installing to make sure this
doesn't happen. Only update drivers if there is a need, either to correct a
problem or the new driver has some must have feature, otherwise if things
are working don't mess with it for drivers. If a driver needs to be update
get it from the device manufacturer's web site for retail devices, the
computer OEM's web site if it's a major OEM like HP or Dell, or from the
motherboard manufacturer's web site if it's an on board device.

System restore does not monitor user files, only system files and certain
monitored files for applications.

A good way to protect your system is to use a drive imaging program such as
Acronis True Image Home version 10 to regularly image the system to an
external hard drive. Image the system before making any changes such as
installing updates. Then if there is a problem you can't otherwise resolve,
in this case a driver rollback was easy to do and resolved this problem, the
system can be restored from the the most recent image in less than an hour
you're back in business

 

[Guest]

Great advice, Rock; thanks. I'll keep that on file.
I agree about the need for a better backup. I thought I was covered with
weekly backups to a secondary internal HD using an Eisenworld product, but
when my primary HD went to that big blue screen error in the sky, the back up
zipped files all turned out to be corrupted and irretrievable. But good old
Aloha Bob turned out to have -459.7F support. I saw a tout for DataNumen on
the Forum and ordered it but it only retrieved half my files. Their support
has also tailed off now to zero. I'm looking into Acronis now and saw a good
description on the Forum, but she didn't seem too crazy about using it with a
secondary internal.
Thanks again for your support.

 

[Rock]

You're welcome. I don't recommend backing up to an internal drive. Backups
should be stored external - external hard drive, DVD, networked drive, etc.
There should also be redundancy in backups. I alternate between several
different external drives, so one can be stored off site.