Display artifacts

[astroman]

computer- AMD 3400 sempron 1G ram; os- windows xp pro sp2; problem: strange
artifacts after nearly 2 years of problem-free operation; when xp boots up,
the usual black screen with the logo and moving colored bar has in addition
several evenly spaced square clumps of blue dashed lines. when the classic
background display comes up, this is normal, but several of the desktop icons
are partially missing and replaced by faint dashed lines. the mouse pointer
has a square of dashed lines surrounding it and in some applications, the
pointer disappears completely. in many applications, some icons are missing
just as on the desktop. however, all applications appear to operate normally
otherwise.
so far i have confirmed all windows updates installed;antivirus, adaware
have been run with no problems reported. i have ruled out a monitor problem.
i have updated the driver for the video card with no changes noted. not sure
what else to do at this point.
thanks

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Boot to safe mode (f8 on restart) to determine what happens. If still there,
it's probably not the video driver. I would suspect video RAM.

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Mark L. Ferguson
..

"astroman" > wrote in message
...
> computer- AMD 3400 sempron 1G ram; os- windows xp pro sp2; problem:
> strange
> artifacts after nearly 2 years of problem-free operation; when xp boots
> up,
> the usual black screen with the logo and moving colored bar has in
> addition
> several evenly spaced square clumps of blue dashed lines. when the classic
> background display comes up, this is normal, but several of the desktop
> icons
> are partially missing and replaced by faint dashed lines. the mouse
> pointer
> has a square of dashed lines surrounding it and in some applications, the
> pointer disappears completely. in many applications, some icons are
> missing
> just as on the desktop. however, all applications appear to operate
> normally
> otherwise.
> so far i have confirmed all windows updates installed;antivirus, adaware
> have been run with no problems reported. i have ruled out a monitor
> problem.
> i have updated the driver for the video card with no changes noted. not
> sure
> what else to do at this point.
> thanks

[C A Upsdell]

astroman wrote:
> computer- AMD 3400 sempron 1G ram; os- windows xp pro sp2; problem: strange
> artifacts after nearly 2 years of problem-free operation; when xp boots up,
> the usual black screen with the logo and moving colored bar has in addition
> several evenly spaced square clumps of blue dashed lines. when the classic
> background display comes up, this is normal, but several of the desktop icons
> are partially missing and replaced by faint dashed lines. the mouse pointer
> has a square of dashed lines surrounding it and in some applications, the
> pointer disappears completely. in many applications, some icons are missing
> just as on the desktop. however, all applications appear to operate normally
> otherwise.
> so far i have confirmed all windows updates installed;antivirus, adaware
> have been run with no problems reported. i have ruled out a monitor problem.
> i have updated the driver for the video card with no changes noted. not sure
> what else to do at this point.

Check connectors inside and outside the PC, make sure they are tight.
Make sure all daughter cards in the PC are seated firmly.