Weirdest problem I've ever seen....

[gwilks98]

It seems that I'm having a strange video problem. Here's the description.

Every once in a while, my computer will slow down to a crawl. It will look as if it's trying to display the desktop icons on top of whatever windows I've got open (it's like my active window is semi-transparent) I remember the exact keyboard steps you can take to do a reboot (ctrl + esc, up arrow, then hit the enter key if the shutdown menu is on reboot). This works no prob. In otherwords, the computer still recognizes commands. I can also Ctrl + Alt +Del no prob. (rebooting is the only method I know of to fix this)

Here's where it gets funny. It seems like the ONLY time I get these video problems is when I am viewing posted images in these forums with internet explorer or viewing attached email jpegs in Outlook Express.


Here's what I'm usually running:
Norton Antivirus 2000 (updated).
AIM
Outlook express
Adaptec Direct CD wizard
Rambooster.

The computer is 7 months old, and I've had all the programs I currently have in RAM since I built it. I haven't had a problem until about a month ago.


Here's the hardware:
ASUS CUSL2 Mobo
Voodoo 3 AGP
Maxtor 20Gig 7200 ATA100
IBM 128MB PC133 RAM (1 stick)
Pentium III 733 (FCPGA)


Anyone have a clue what the hell this problem is?


forever grateful,
wilks



oh yeah, one more thing.

I've only had on occurrance of a fatal exception error at the same address. (about a month ago)

[LPMiller]

corrupt install of IE, maybe? Try to uninstall it, it should give you an option to repair itself..I know, dumb place to put it, but thats microsoft.

[nwarawa]

Another vote for reinstalling IE. Try an older version.

[gwilks98]

Well, I upgraded to IE 5.5 and no luck yet. I guess I'll try downgrading next. Any other suggestions?

[nwarawa]

Delete everthing in your startup menu. Disable "Load on Startup" in all those dumb icons are the bottom right corner. Use some original 3dfx drivers.

[Jeffbx]

Did you try it with all the startup programs disabled? Try to stop the NAV service entirely, don't just disable it.

[gwilks98]

Originally posted by nwarawa
Delete everthing in your startup menu. Disable "Load on Startup" in all those dumb icons are the bottom right corner. Use some original 3dfx drivers.


I think I am using original 3dfx drivers. I only have a few programs that load on startup, most of which I need (like antivirus)

Nwarawa, but how are the start up programs related to what seems to be a video problem? Boy, I'm lost, but it's worth a shot...

[nwarawa]

You said your system slowed to a crawl, while the icons were trying to pop thru. Well, thats not necessarily a video problem. It could be a program bug/incompatibility.
The less programs that are in the background, the easier it is to troubleshoot. I'd even disable the virus scanner until the problem is fixed.