Help me solve an XP mystery!

[Jeff H]

Guys,

My freshman in college called today to tell me her system is not recognizing the monitor (and the screen is "sluggish").

First some details: Windows XP Pro SP2 fully patched, P4 2.0 GHz Northwood, EPoX 4SDA5+ SiS648 chipset motherboard, 1GB Corsair Value PC3200, nVidia GF3 200 128MB vid card, LiteOn DVD-ROM and DVD-/+RW, Samsung 40GB IDE HD, Antec 380w ps.

I built the system in August, and the monitor (Samsung 151S LCD) was properly recognized, and the system performed fine. Today my daughter tells me the monitor is recognized as "Default monitor," and there is no way that I can find to change it to recognize the 151S. The Properties button is greyed out when we right click the desktop and navigate our way to the monitor, so I can't do a driver update. There is no monitor at all listed in Device Mgr. If I try to add a hardware device it gives a driver file error, yet these same files were used to set it up in August.

Other weirdness - any System Restore point she tries greturns an error about the restore files being incomplete.

Other than a reinstall I can't think of what to do. Does anyone have any suggestions b4 I drive 90 minutes to do a reinstall?

TIA,

Jeff

 

[thegorx]

I don't know what going on there
but I do know some people wait from the computer to boot up before turning on the monitor and the plug and play drivers don't load.

but I've never seen the properties button greyed out

as far as doing something besides reinstall, you could use the system restore snapshot registry back ups and restore the registry, system restore can't really be counted on, so you might want to ghost image your windows partition when you get it working again.

 

[Jeff H]

thegorx, thanks for the reply. I'll ask her about turning on the monitor b4 booting up the system.

As I said in my OP, we can't do a System Restore as each of the points is identified as being "incomplete."

Jeff

 

[Fraggable]

Definitely sounds like a trojan or virus of some kind.

Or, possibly, I've seen hard drive permissions do similar things. I'd reset all permissions to default if they're not already.

 

[topdoubledigit]

reformat... backup on USB key

 

[Dahak]

check to see if the video card is being detected properly or if the video card drivers are installed. Ive seen this and the result is xp uses the default vga drivers that give you enough video to see, but everthing like scrolling and the refresh rate is terrible.

*Edit* and seeing as its a Geforce 3 card, i have had nvidia drivers on the windows updates site break the drivers, just have to go to www.nvidia.com and re-download and install the propers

 

[Jeff H]

Fraggable, my first guess between the two possible scenarios would be a virus. My daughter is "forced" to use a version of Symantec NAV that is provided via an online install. She has some issues w/ NAV earlier in the school year, and the school (shall go unnamed) pretty much put their head in the sand re the problem.

She has received a few virus notices, and I'm not confident she's doing the right thing w/ those notices. I'll check that out first.

Second, is there a simple explanation for how one would reset the hard drive permissions? I did a Google search and came up with a lot of questions, rather than answers.

TIA,

Jeff

 

[Fraggable]

Second, is there a simple explanation for how one would reset the hard drive permissions? I did a Google search and came up with a lot of questions, rather than answers.

TIA,

Jeff

Go to control panel>folder options View tab. Scroll to the bottom of the pane and uncheck 'use simple file sharing'.

right-click the C:\ drive and choose 'sharing and security'. select the 'security' tab.

the Administrators group should have Full Control.
CREATOR OWNER has only Special Permissions. I wouldn't worry about this group.
Everyone has only special permissions too, but again, I would worry about this one.
System has Full Control. This is the critical one.
and Users have read & Execute, List Folder Contents, and Read permissions.

Apply those settings and see if it fixes it. You may have to click the Advanced button on the securtiy tab and make sure it replaces the permissions on subfolders too.

The video drivers suggestion seems likely too, though I can't see why it wouldn't even let you into the Display Properties pane... Definitely worth checking.

 

[jagger]

I believe this usually happens when you have Windows automatic updates on.
It downloaded M$'s update which nullified the monitor information file.
If you know your GRAPHICs CARD Model (nVidia GF3 200 128MB vid card) you should download it from the Manufacturers web site http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_81.85.html. You should also download your monitor.inf file from Samsung (Samsung 151S LCD). http://www.samsung.com/download/FileVie...e=202&model=151S&filetype=DR&language=

 

[Nocturnal]

Have her boot into Windows using VGA mode by hitting F8 after the POST screen. This should fix this issue. I just had this problem with a client's computer. Regular Windows as well as safe mode would not bring up the properties button. However, booting into Windows using VGA mode worked and the button was not greyed out.

 

[thegorx]

Originally posted by: Jeff H
thegorx, thanks for the reply. I'll ask her about turning on the monitor b4 booting up the system.

As I said in my OP, we can't do a System Restore as each of the points is identified as being "incomplete."

Jeff

right, but that's for everything files and all
if the restore point shows in system restore there are registry back up files in your System Volume Information folder for that day
it's just a matter of restoring the registry manually rather than using system restore

 

[Jeff H]

Originally posted by: thegorx

Originally posted by: Jeff H
thegorx, thanks for the reply. I'll ask her about turning on the monitor b4 booting up the system.

As I said in my OP, we can't do a System Restore as each of the points is identified as being "incomplete."

Jeff

right, but that's for everything files and all
if the restore point shows in system restore there are registry back up files in your System Volume Information folder for that day
it's just a matter of restoring the registry manually rather than using system restore

thegorx, thanks for the bounceback. I did read in an MS article that System Restore will not restore a previous restore point if there was a virus that was deleted, or left in the restore point.

I looked at my system for the System Volume Information folder, and performed the procedures to make it viewable. However, there was no Security tab w/ which to make it accessible to any user. FYI I'm the administrator on my system so I'm not having a user accesibililty issue.

 

[Jeff H]

Dahak and jagger, I'm going to "bet" that your recommenation on vid card drivers being "updated" by MS Update gets to the issue. I know Auto Updates is turned on, and I've seen times where it wants to update vid drivers w/ something it thinks is better, only to hose the system.

I'll follow your suggestions to right this thing. Nocturnal, thanks for your suggestion also, I'll give that a try.

Thanks to all of you that have given me input, I'll let you know how the "fix" turns out, I'm taking her back to school this afternoon.

Jeff

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Jeff H
Dahak and jagger, I'm going to "bet" that your recommenation on vid card drivers being "updated" by MS Update gets to the issue. I know Auto Updates is turned on, and I've seen times where it wants to update vid drivers w/ something it thinks is better, only to hose the system.

I'll follow your suggestions to right this thing. Nocturnal, thanks for your suggestion also, I'll give that a try.

Thanks to all of you that have given me input, I'll let you know how the "fix" turns out, I'm taking her back to school this afternoon.

Jeff

I don't believe that Automatic Updates will install hardware drivers, only critical security updates.

 

[Jeff H]

MrChad, you could very well be right, re Auto Updates not updating hardware drivers. It will interesting to see what the issue is when I get my hands on the system later this afternoon.

Jeff

 

[thegorx]

Originally posted by: Jeff H

I looked at my system for the System Volume Information folder, and performed the procedures to make it viewable. However, there was no Security tab w/ which to make it accessible to any user. FYI I'm the administrator on my system so I'm not having a user accesibililty issue.

it's a system folder I believe
look here

How to gain access to the System Volume Information folder

then look for the CACLS instructions

How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting

or use a bartspe CD it has system rights

 

[Jeff H]

thegorx, thanks for the instructions. I'll file them away for future use.

UPDATE: I was able to look at my daughter's system yesterday, and funny, there were no video drivers identified for the vid card, as welll as no identified monitor.

I used Driver Cleaner to clean out any remnants of the nVidia drivers after the uninstall, and then proceeded to do a vid driver install. The install went fine, and lo and behold the monitor "magically" appeared right after.

I did a sweep w/ the installed Symantec AV, as well as McAfee's Stinger, and CWShredder. CWS did find one variant, and removed it. I spoke w/ my daughter today and her system is running fine.

Jeff