Wndows XP bug??

[LouP]

Hey guys,

This is a really weird one. For a while now I have had some very strange behavior on my PC. I read one place that it is a bug in XP when auto-hiding your task bar and I also read that it was an issue with nVidia drivers. I use Spybot and have Avast running and up to date at all times and recently scanned my PC so I am pretty sure it is not a virus or spyware. OK, the symptoms; after about 5 minutes after my PC boots up, it will let out what I can best describe as a chirp :isadizzy: and the windows task bar and title bar of whatever program I am in flashes black. :bs: Then the appearance of my windows (I run with the silver appearance) reverts back to XP classic (blue task bar). If I am already in XP classic the whole task bar and start menu go black and stay that way . All I need to do at this point is just reset my appearance in windows and I am good until the next re-boot where I go through the same cycle once more . It seems to be happening to quite a few folks but it also appears that nobody has really found a resolution. I hate to start mucking around with settings and programs without even being sure what the cause is. I have seen other folks complain about the exact same issue only to have others say they just are nuts so I am not sure what may happen here cause I think its nuts too and its happening to me. Maybe I should just grab a drink. :friday:

If anyone knows what this could be, the help would be appreciated.

LouP :mixedsmi:

[glennc]

LouP,

I think you need a Christmas gift to yourself. My guess is the graphics card, or maybe just a driver problem. Let us know how this works out.

Glenn

[Blackbird686]

Hey LouP --

Glennc is pretty much right about the possibility of a video driver issue here. I had a similar issue a few weeks back where upon shutdown of Windows XP I would get a real quick message flash... so quick that I couldn't read it. I ignored it for a few days then one morning I powered up my machine only to get a "Windows Stop Error" message. I sends off the error to Microsoft, as instructed and after a while I get an email from a tech saying to either back off the video acceleration or install the latest reference driver for my video card.

The latter did the trick, and I would start with that first. There was no way I was gonna back off of my acceleration settings on my viddy card,
My FS looks too pretty for that

BB686:USA-flag:

[Motormouse]

umm, I'd suggest running the directX 'Dxdiag' utility,
see what is (or isn't) responding. I've had similar before when updating nVidia drivers,
the 'latest and greatest' isn't always the best, one particular set wouldn't work
with dx9.0c

ttfn

Pete

[Moparmike]

Hey guys,

This is a really weird one. For a while now I have had some very strange behavior on my PC. I read one place that it is a bug in XP when auto-hiding your task bar and I also read that it was an issue with nVidia drivers. I use Spybot and have Avast running and up to date at all times and recently scanned my PC so I am pretty sure it is not a virus or spyware. OK, the symptoms; after about 5 minutes after my PC boots up, it will let out what I can best describe as a chirp :isadizzy: and the windows task bar and title bar of whatever program I am in flashes black. :bs: Then the appearance of my windows (I run with the silver appearance) reverts back to XP classic (blue task bar). If I am already in XP classic the whole task bar and start menu go black and stay that way . All I need to do at this point is just reset my appearance in windows and I am good until the next re-boot where I go through the same cycle once more .

LouP :mixedsmi:

Lou,

I have the same auto-hide redraw problem on my laptop (Nvidia GF4GO20...basically the 420MX chipset with a few power save features). It doesn't suffer from the chirp/black bug you describe though.

I always chalked it up to a bug in StyleXP (a skinning utility like Stardock or Windowblinds) but found that it happens if I run a pure unskinned XP too. The problem goes away if I turn off auto-hide. Kinda stinks because I like to use that since I've only got 1024x768 to work with on that machine.

I've tried oodles of different drivers (always with DX9.0c though). I've had the best results with an older set of Omega tweaked Nvidia drivers somewhere in the 88.xxx range. with these drivers I only get the redraw problem every dozen boots or so instead of almost every time.

Maybe try scrounging up some older drivers?

What card and drivers are you running?

[LouP]

Hey Mopar,

I have a XFX 7800GS Extreme running the nVidia 175.16 drivers. I have read about a few people having issues with the auto hide but hate to turn off features I like and as designed too be used. What got me was that there were about 5 other folks that swore they had narrowed it down to something else so I was not sure. I may try and bump the drivers up before I roll them back and see how I make out. I probably could use a new ride here but I am pushing this PC as far as possible :friday:.

LouP

PS. as I was writing this my appearance just reset itself back to the default blue. MS

[glennc]

Lou, I'm running an Nvidia 9800GT with the 180.48 driver. I don't know if it'll work with your card, but mine's very happy.

Glenn

[altu727]

This is one more stab in the dark, but could the flashing taskbar be another application trying to alert you it wants the "focus"? Download and run "Tweak UI" for Windows XP (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...powertoys.mspx), navigate to General | Focus and select accordingly.