Colour problem (1 Viewer)

[duckofdoom]

for the past week now the colours have been screwing up.

it's not the monitor. everything looks pixelated and there are blotches of colour on pictures.

could anyone suggest what's happened.

by the way all this started when my computer became infected with spyware - although that's gone and so's the hijak crap could this be part of the problem.

i really am a technological dunce so help would be very appreciated.

 

[MedNez]

Please check the connections between your monitor and case - is the cord plugged in correctly?

I doubt it was the spyware. Try upgrading your video drivers and see if that solves anything!

 

[Daveo]

Can you tell what Video card you've got? It might be on its way out or needs new drivers

 

[duckofdoom]

I'm a technological dunce. I don't know what kind of video card/driver I've got.

If I do need a new one, roughly how much are they and are there particular video cards with excellent quality?

 

[Collin]

For display purposes only, cheap video cards do the job fine. If it's your video card thats the problem, you may not even need a new one. Just set the display adaptor to your integrated mobo. Otherwise a cheap one would cost around $30-50, but since you're a 'technological dunce', you'll need someone to put it in for you.

First of all, don't bother with that yet. Like MedNez said, check the connection between your monitor and PC are secured. If the cable's loose, well obviously things are gonna stuff up and might even fry your monitor. Check which video card you have. Go to the Control Panel, Display, Settings tab, Advanced, Adaptor tab and write here what it says under the 'Chip Type' line. And yes, try updating your video card drivers.

 

[Collin]

On second thought, why don't you think it's the monitor?

 

[duckofdoom]

because I switched monitors and it does the same thing on the other one.

 

[Collin]

In that case, follow the advice I outlined above. So, what's the video card?

 

[Templar]

It could just be that the display is set to 16 colour at VGA resolution or lower.

 

[Collin]

lol ^^^^^^

 

[duckofdoom]

This is what was on the screen

Intel 740 Win9x PV 4.0
Intel corporation.

There's heaps of numbers and blah blah, don't know if they're relevant.

I think it's set to 256 colours.

 

[Collin]

I highly doubt it's set to 256 colours. Go to Control Panel, Display, Settings tab and it tells you what you're on. You should be on 16 or 24 bit, which is millions of colours. If it's 256, well obviously it will look crap.

As for the video card, let's try another method. Right click on My Computer on your desktop, go to Properties, Hardware tab, Device Manager, go and find 'Display adaptors' in that list, open it and tell us what it says.

 

[darksbane]

If its not the 256 colours problem, then I would say it sounds like the video card could be artifacting if you've tested it on multiple monitors. If thats the case then either its getting too hot (the VRAM in particular), or its just on the way out...

Based on the make and model you mentioned before, Intel 740 Win9x PV 4.0, I would assume it would be integrated into the motherboard, in which case the VRAM is just shared with the system RAM, meaning that its possible that its the RAM thats getting too hot or is on the way out, though I would expect if that was the case there would be a few more problems then just the display.

In the case that its the video card, since its integrated, if your motherboard doesnt have an AGP or PCI-E 16x port, then you won't be able to replace it unless you can dig up a PCI video card, though they are fairly uncommon there are some kicking around that should do what you need. If none of the above options is available then it would mean the motherboard would need replacing basicly, though I would only consider that if theres no way to do one of the other options...

 

[duckofdoom]

It says the same as before intel 740 Win9x PV 4.0. Under the sub heading "driver status" it says it's working properly. That's bizarre. Says hardware version 033.

If it was getting too hot would there be a problem such as every web page being too big for the screen so I have to constantly scroll from right to left? Because that's also a problem. I don't know if that's associated.

I just changed it over to high colour (16 bit) but the problem is still persistant.

If the RAM is getting too hot, would simply leaving the computer off completely for a few days fix the problem? That sounds stupid. I just can't get this.

JKDdragon, does it help mentioning that I have windows 98? Gees mt computer is crap. Is it worth mentioning it's pentium 3? I'll just add all the info I have to try and get my answer.

Thanks for all your suggestions guys, I really appreciate it.

 

[darksbane]

The reason for web pages requiring you to scroll across will most likely be due to your screen resolution. I hadnt thought of this before, but it is entirely possible your screen resolution has been lowered to a resolution that doesnt play nice with your monitor, though on a machine running 98, most monitors of the time should be fine with really low resolutions...

Try right clicking on the desktop, then click properties. A little window should popup with a heap of tabs along the top of it. Click the settings tab, I can't remember what it was called in 98, but there should be something in relation to the screen resolution, it will be listed as something like 640x480 or 800x600 or 1024x768 something like that, see if you can find what its set at. There is every possibility it could be at something obscenely low like 320x240, though I would count that as extremely unlikely. Just a possibility.

Leaving the computer off for a few days wouldn't really fix the problem if the RAM is overheating, though I think the chances of the ram being too hot are fairly slim.

 

[Collin]

I would say your integrated video card has called it the quits. If that's the case, then like darksbane suggested, you'll need to buy a new one. Either an AGP one, if your mobo has an AGP slot or an old PCI one. Cheap AGPs commonly available right now go from $50-$100. Old PCI ones are even cheaper, but you'll have trouble finding them. But since you admit you're not so good with tech, you'll probably have to get someone or even pay someone to put it in for you. Have you considered getting a new computer?

I doubt there's much wrong with the RAM. If so, you'd more likely see behaviour like computer freezing, blue screen of deaths, random restarts etc. rather than colour display problems.

 

[darksbane]

I would agree about the RAM, if its the case that there is no AGP slot, she wouldn't necassarily have to get an old PCI one, XpertVision make a PCI Geforce FX 5200 that has almost identical specs to the AGP one, it is about $40 more expensive though. I have seen some other new PCI graphics cards around, though I'm not sure how much longer they will be around for with PCI-e....

 

[duckofdoom]

There's a little bar with an arrow. The arrow is set to 640 x 480.

Somehow my colour problem has sorted it self out. I cannot explain it???

Regardless thanks for all you guys for helping me.

Now my new problem is the screen size, which makes me scroll it left to right to view a normal sized web page. aaarrrgghh!!!! lol.

 

[Collin]

Go to Control Panel, Display, Settings tab and under the 'Screen Resolution' area, choose a higher resolution. If you've got a 17" monitor, try 1024x768. Once that's done, don't leave the Settings tab. Go to 'Advanced', Monitor tab.. and after making sure that 'Hide modes that this monitor cannot display' is checked, go into that list and choose the highest frequency there. 85Hz or better is ideal. This is to make sure your monitor's refresh rate is high enough that it doesn't give you eye distress or headaches.