Posted on 10/22/2012 7:56:58 AM PDT by editor-surveyor
I have one that is experiencing video and LCD screen problems. I have investigated and found that this model and others have problems like this after a few years. For now, mine goes away when it warms up.
In your case, to definitely determine hardware or malware problem, take an image of your hard drive and store it on an external USB drive. Then format the drive and do a reinstall of WinXP....or simply install a copy of a Linux distro. If the problem persists, it's hardware. Get it fixed and then re-image your hard drive with the image you put on the external USB drive.
Macrium Reflect is free imaging software and easy to use.
Multiple possible answers, depending on whether this is a consistent problem, or varies with time.
If this is happening essentially immediately after boot-up (from a cold machine), then it wouldn’t be a heat problem.
If the color changes are limited to certain portions of windows, then I would indeed suspect some sort of malware, but even that isn’t necessarily the case, as it could involve an issue with certain operations of the video card.
If the changing colors are over the entire display - to one degree or another, then it would tend to point to the video itself... and unfortunately that means you may as well go shopping... though Black Friday is just around the corner!
If this is the Latitude C640 model, then I’d say you’d gotten your money’s worth!
Try this: get someone to steal the laptop, then use the insurance proceeds to buy a new one. That will work better than dealing with Dell customer service. :)
LOL. Post of the thread.
Agree.
If Malwarebytes won’t fix it, probably nothing will.
Looks like your VGA card is a problem. First try to re-install graphic driver, if problem remain same, replace card.
Or you can test, reduce acceleration and see whether that change display.
Magnets only affect CRT’s.
I use Spybot and follow up with Malware. that tends to clear all things.
Last week Spybot 6 and malware got 3.
The week before, running malware first it got 2 and spybot got 2.
Keep it up weekly, it needs to be done regularly and don’t forget to update your programs, there’s new stuff coming out daily to disrupt/crash your computer
F12
Turn the computer on and when the DELL logo appears press F12
this will get you into Diagnostics where you can test the display. If it is a malware problem it will go way while in diagnostics, if it is a hardware problem it will stay.
Any possibility of taking a screenshot and then posting it here on FR? You can upload image to Flickr (or similar) or Jing and post the image or link here if you know how. You will get a much more accurate answer from the geeks here on FR.
Good suggestion. If he sees the same rainbows in safe mode then it is probably the video card or a monitor problem. Doesn't sound like malware. If the problem remains in safe mode, my first extinct would be to replace the monitor if he has one available.
If it were mine I would also try disconnecting and reconnecting the monitor connections both ends. Then (if its a tower) try reseating the PC boards inside and see what happens. Its worth a shot at least. Also can you hook up another monitor to it and check it again?
Rainbow graphics? Your computer has come out of the closet and is now proudly proclaiming to be gay. Attempting to reprogram it to a straight OS is a hate crime and the ACLU will have you in court. Get rid of it before it insists that you pay to have the gender of it’s ports changed.
I don’t thing a screenshot will help; it’s obviously a new kid on the block that present malware scanners are not finding. Also it is dynamic, so a video would likely be needed to show that facet.
No, this is clearly intelligent information, not malfunction.
I realize that AC leaking into the power would generate horizontal bars, but it wouldn’t make that concentric, changing and complex graphic that appears in the upper left corner of only the startup screen.
We went to Malware bytes, no help.
This thing is clearly a program that generates complex information, not just some accidental failure.
Also, I ran a dos autocad rendering on the machine and it displays perfectly.
No magnet, and the graphic disappears after the startup screen.
The problem also disappears in MS DOS mode. (Autocad)
Graphics card failure. I had the same failure on a D series Dell Latitude.
>> “Try booting into safe mode.” <<
.
I did that one better, I booted the machine in MS DOS 6.2, and ran a complex high resolution AutoCAD rendering, and it displays perfectly.
The hardware is fine.
This thing is “intelligent.” It turns the blue title bar at the top of the program windows into a diagonal scrolling rainbow, but only the bar, nothing else is like that. The rest of the screen (’desktop’) is faded horizontal bars.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.