OMG! my one and only puter is coming unglued

[Q]

The display is messed up. There is wacky shit all over my screen. Rainbow colored dots, the cursor has a buncha lines hanging around it, so it's hard to tell where it is. I thought it might be the vid card, so I updated the drivers. When I rebooted it went into SAFEMODE out of sheer panic, I rebooted again....baaaad idea. It then proceeded to display alpha and numeric and alien characters all over the screen, it never finished booting up. Ctrl+alt+del again. same shit. Turn off power at the power button and do a cold boot. No scan disk, just boots right into windows.
At one point during this rebooting frenzy I got a window that said some of the NAV32 config files were missing. They should all be missing, because I used reg cleaner to remove the stupid Norton trial version that was expired. Could Norton be causing all these problems?

 

[Q]

ACK! it's getting worse, my taskbar just went MIA. Letters in the titles of threads are disappearing and reapperaing....and the smiley window has smilies outside the window and the ones inside are all on top of each other.

 

[Huge]

I've had more problems with Symantec products lately; months after getting rid of Systemworks; I find that it's been keeping a lot of deleted files in another directory other than c:\recycler (don't ask me why)...

 

[Q]

Please, oh please....it just keeps getting worse Huge chunks of text are missing, fat black lines are running horizontally, jumpy yellow lines are running vertically.

 

[s4]

Try reinstalling the trial version of Norton. If it will let you install it, then you may remove it from the Add/Remove programs icon in Control Panel. Never use reg cleaner. I used that one a long time ago, and it screwed my computer up big time. You may have to reinstall windows if this continues.

I would run msconfig from the Run command on the Start Menu to see what is being loaded at startup. Uncheck anything that is not necessary.

I bought Norton Systemworks Pro 2001 off of the web for $20. It includes Ghost which I use to keep a backup of my system. Anytime my system goes screwy, I can restore the whole os in about 5 minutes.

 

[s4]

It probably doesn't have anything to do with it, but make sure your monitor is plugged in securely on the back of the computer and that the video card hasn't slipped out of the socket. If either of these things happen you could get some strange things on the screen.

Another possiblity is that you could have a virus.

 

[Gonzo]

If every thing is tight, re-start in safemode with command prompt & type "C:\scandisk\auotfix"....it may help

 

[fury]

Win98 will do that from time to time... reinstall is the only option

 

[Q]

I can't stand it!
At one point my screen was so messed up I couldn't even read anything. I shut it down by aiming for and hoping I put the cursor in the right place. I left it off for about 30 minutes, fired it back up and now the display is perfect. Wonder how long it will last?
I went to the symantec website and used the correct removal tool for the trial version I had and there are still chunks of that damn program on there.

 

[fury]

Could be a video card overheating issue, but I doubt it.

Win98's system resource management is so grossly and horribly fucked that when left running long enough, or when abused with memory-intensive programs such as Photoshop and Genome and Quake etc, it will not remember to clean up the old memory allocation, and it won't have any room left for the GUI resource, which turns into the mess you experienced.

There is NO way to get around it in Win98, and even in Win2k it happens occasionally (takes a lot more for it to happen, but it does)

 

[Q]

Rebooting should have rectified a memory resource problem, shouldn't it?

The video problems are starting to return. New and exciting problems! Now the text is starting to bunch up. Some of the letters are running together....and some are kinda bold now.

Reinstalling windows is not an option at this point, since my 98 CD has been possessed by demons and it no longer loads the DLL library.

I have temporarily decided to approach this dilema from a different point of view. I am drinking a beer.

 

[Q]

If every thing is tight, re-start in safemode with command prompt & type "C:\scandisk\auotfix"....it may help

Ok, well everything seems to be tight except me (blame that on the beer ) and I attempted the scandisk/autofix, which was going delightfully well...until windows decided it was having no part of my mouse. It's a logitech. It was about 50 bucks. I guess I can go buy a cheezo $8.00 ms mouse which would be recognized in safemode...or I can crank open another cold one.....or I can do a cold boot every45 minutes or so till nothing works anymore.

 

[wine4all]

Could be a video card overheating issue, but I doubt it.

Win98's system resource management is so grossly and horribly fucked that when left running long enough, or when abused with memory-intensive programs such as Photoshop and Genome and Quake etc, it will not remember to clean up the old memory allocation, and it won't have any room left for the GUI resource, which turns into the mess you experienced.

There is NO way to get around it in Win98, and even in Win2k it happens occasionally (takes a lot more for it to happen, but it does)

At first glance I think it is some kind of overheating problem. Check the CPU, case, power supply and video card (if applicable) fans to make sure they are all working properly.

If they seem to be working try cracking open the case and putting a room fan on it to see if it goes away. If it does then I would say either the vid card needs a fan (if it doesn't have one) or the CPU fan is not sufficient for the CPU you are running.

But then again, I could be wrong.

 

[Q]

I have 3- 92mm case fans and a cak32 cpu fan. 2 of the 92mm are sucking air into the case and one is blowing it out. I don't have a sensor, but the air coming out of the case feels cool. The psu is also cool to the touch.
Is it possible this vid card is just puking? Do they go out fighting like this? ...or do they just die?

 

[greenfreak]

Q, please tell me you have already or backed up your files... Did you try to reinstall the Norton program you tried to get rid of? Can you get your hands on another video card to see if changing them out helps?

 

[wine4all]

I have 3- 92mm case fans and a cak32 cpu fan. 2 of the 92mm are sucking air into the case and one is blowing it out. I don't have a sensor, but the air coming out of the case feels cool. The psu is also cool to the touch.
Is it possible this vid card is just puking? Do they go out fighting like this? ...or do they just die?

Starting to sound like a job for the "3R's". Reload... Rebuild... Reboot!!!

Windows strikes again. Or is this puppy overclocked?

 

[Q]

It's not o/ced. This is my back up little puppy system. It always ran great. It has a 1GB t-bird, only 128MB RAM a 350w psu and a 6.4GB HDD.
It's the only machine I have running right now. It has to work.

 

[Neo]

Unfortunately Q, wine4all may be right. If everything else is working like its supposed to you may have to rebuild the pup.
You still will want to try a different video card if you can get ahold of one. just to be sure.
I know when i had this problem i ended up losing my 19 inch monitor. was the tube flaking out on me.

I miss that ol monitor.

 

[fury]

If fucked up enough, even after a reboot, Windows can still be fubar. I've experienced it first-hand. Trust me. Reinstall is the ONLY option unless God throws you a miracle or twenty

 

[Huge]

I have temporarily decided to approach this dilema from a different point of view. I am drinking a beer.

That's my girl!

What's the latest? What vid card do you have in there anyways?

Ok, well everything seems to be tight except me (blame that on the beer ) and I attempted the scandisk/autofix, which was going delightfully well...until windows decided it was having no part of my mouse. It's a logitech. It was about 50 bucks. I guess I can go buy a cheezo $8.00 ms mouse which would be recognized in safemode...or I can crank open another cold one.....or I can do a cold boot every45 minutes or so till nothing works anymore.

Is it a USB mouse? USB won't work in safemode.