Some popup windows are partially rendered

[Keith_M]

On the Dell Latitude laptop I use for work, I experience an odd display
problem when I use the built-in monitor. When using certain browser-based
applications (such as SharePoint), popup menus are incompletely displayed.
If there are, say, 8 menu items, I see only the topmost 5. Also, when I
bring up a website's dialog box popup in Internet Explorer 7, all of the area
in the dialog box will not be visible, although scroll bars do allow me to
see to scroll and see the rest of the window.

When I switch to an external monitor, everything is fine. I can see all of
the display area of the same popup menus, and the same popup dialog boxes are
displayed completely, with no scroll bars. By the way, the appearance of the
scroll bars is not due to lower screen resolution. Changing display settings
has not helped.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

Sounds like your display screen is about to fail. Contact Dell Support or
post in the appropriate Dell Support forum for more assistance.

 

[windmap]

Before you try steps mentioned below , try whether this problem also occurs
in safemode if yes ,proceed to Next steps mentioned below.

Do you have Graphics card in Laptop.If yes Reseat the graphics card.If its
integrated Graphics Reinstall the Graphics drivers from DELL Resource
CD.Disable all startup items.

 

[Keith_M]

Thank you much for the response. However, I'm convinced that there is no
problem with the display. By and large, all elements of a page display
perfectly.

I've been told by a desktop guru that my problem cannot be in the hardware
or in the display driver. Otherwise, there would be all sorts of problems -
nothing so selective as the area displayed in popup windows on certain web
pages. This problem is occuring at the rendering level, above the level of
the display plumbing and wiring. The software components that perform the
rendering are not able to calculate the needed display area of the popup
correctly. Most likely, this is either a design problem of the components
with certain display resolutions, or some component has gotten whacked.

We have had another employee of the company experience the same problem on
an identical Dell laptop, and only on the built-in display.

 

[Keith_M]

Very interesting. The display problem does not happen in Safe Mode.

I will try reinstalling the driver. However, another employee of the
company had exactly this same problem on an identical laptop. I suspect a
simple incompatibility at the rendering level with the graphics settings
(1400 x 1050 res). Lowering the resolution, though, has no effect.

Thank you much.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

Contact Dell Support.

Thank you much for the response. However, I'm convinced that there is no
problem with the display. By and large, all elements of a page display
perfectly.

I've been told by a desktop guru that my problem cannot be in the hardware
or in the display driver. Otherwise, there would be all sorts of
problems -
nothing so selective as the area displayed in popup windows on certain web
pages. This problem is occuring at the rendering level, above the level
of
the display plumbing and wiring. The software components that perform the
rendering are not able to calculate the needed display area of the popup
correctly. Most likely, this is either a design problem of the components
with certain display resolutions, or some component has gotten whacked.

We have had another employee of the company experience the same problem on
an identical Dell laptop, and only on the built-in display.

 

[Keith_M]

I will if they will talk to me. The laptop is over 3 years old and our
support contracts have expired.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

Post in the Dell Community forum then.

[The display on my Dell notebook went south 5 days before my 1-year service
contract expired. A tech came to my home and replaced it the next day and I
re-upped for 2 more years shortly after he left. Those 2 years were up in
Apr-07: Though I never needed to call again, that $130 was worth the peace
of mind.]