Taskbar vanished

[Sheryl]

I have a Dell Dimension 64 bit Windows Vista computer and I've been using
the photo screen saver.
Yesterday, after being away from my computer for awhile and having the
screen saver come on, I moved the mouse to get my desktop back and I got a
message saying "auto adjust" and a small progress box during the adjusting.
When it was completed, my taskbar was gone and the text looked weird, for
lack of a better word. I checked my resolution settings and they hadn't
changed but my desktop seemed to have gotten pushed to one side.
I had to use ctrl alt del to get my taskbar back and realigned my desktop
and everything seemed ok.
This morning, the same thing happened when I left my computer for awhile and
my screen saver came on.
Do you know what could be causing this to happen?
Sheryl

 

[kirk jim]

SHERYL this is a refresh rate setting that causes this...

there are 2 things:
resolution which you checked
and refresh rate

download this free small utility that will create an icon in your tray..
then right click it and see the various refresh rates that you can choose
http://www.greenparrots.com/1stqres.zip

Check the various refresh rates.. if you have a CRT (the old kind of
monitors)
then you need 85 refresh rate for the image to not flicker.

you can do this without a program from within the settings.. but this small
free program is handy

see more info about it here (this free version is on the very bottom of this
page)
http://www.greenparrots.com/aqr.html

 

[Sheryl]

I checked that out but it doesn't say it supports Vista.
Would I have a problem running it?
Couldn't I just go to my monitor settings and choose a different refresh
rate?
Right now my refresh rate is set to 60. It looks like the highest I can go
is 75.
I have an LCD monitor.
Sheryl

 

[kirk jim]

Yes do that.. set it to 75....

post back if this fixes your problem....

 

[Sheryl]

I think it did fix my problem.
The first time I tested it out, I had the auto adjust box again but this
time I didn't lose the taskbar and my text looked ok.
I tried it a second time increasing how long before my screen saver would
come on since I had reduced the time to one minute for the test and wasn't
sure if that made any difference. The second time I increased the time to 5
minutes and when I went back to the computer, I didn't get the adjust box
and everything seemed fine.
Hopefully this fixed what ever was making this happen but I'm also wondering
if the screen saver I picked had anything to do with it.
Before you answered me, I decided to change my screen saver to the bubbles
and I didn't have any problems. I have noticed when using the photo screen
saver, there's a slight pause before the desktop comes back. Everything
turns black then I get the desktop back. This also happened when I changed
the refresh to 75.
Sheryl

 

[kirk jim]

sheryl some screensavers work in different resolutions, so what was
happening,
was that when the screensaver was turned on, windows was going into another
resolution,
and when it came back the refresh rate was not restored correctly....
Monitors have a memory to remember the placment of the image in each
resolutio/refresh rate.
If you change a refresh rate that has never been displayed before, you have
to re-adjust the position on the screen...

If you do this for all combinations of resolutions/refresh rates then your
screen
will always be centered correctly....

Just remember if you have a CRT always try to have 85 refresh rate since
lower causes flickering and is bad for the eyes.
If you have an LCD screen it does not flicker at all, at any refresh rate,
because it has a different technolgy.

nothing to really worry about.. what happened to you happens a lot with
games and stuff...

now you know the cause and how to fix it

 

[Sheryl]

Thanks for explaining all that. And everything seems to be fine now that I
changed my refresh rate.
Sheryl