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XP in 256 Color Mode?

Hi, everybody. I posted this in the display forum last night, but hadn't received feedback as of this moment. I'm re-posting it here to get more exposure and hopefully some suggestions. Thanks.

Original Message:

Hello. I'm having a strange display issue, and I'm out of ideas at the moment. This morning, I booted up the computer and noticed that Windows appeared to be in 256 color mode. You know how a high resolution photo looks when you're in 256 color mode? That's what my desktop wallpaper looks like. But it extends beyond the desktop to browsers and seemingly anything controlled by the OS.

Acer AL2051W and Sapphire X1800XT

I checked the obvious, but the display properties window says that I'm currently in 32-bit mode. I switched to 16-bit mode and back to see if that resolved the problem, but it didn't. I checked the cord connections, and they are secure. I thought perhaps it was a monitor problem, but after running a couple of games, I'm convinced that isn't the issue. I downloaded the most recent ATI drivers and installed them, thinking that even if the driver itself wasn't the problem, then the mere re-installation of the drivers could remedy the problem. It didn't.

The one thing I have noticed is that when I force a preview of my screen saver via the display properties window, the screen flickers twice (as if the monitor is initializing), and during the flicker the color is back to normal. This flickering only occurs when previewing one of several OpenGL based freeware screen savers I've had installed for over a month. After discovering this, I thought perhaps I had downloaded corrupt software. However, I ran McAfee and AdAware and found no threats.

I have never had this problem before, nor have I heard of it. As I mentioned, I'm out of ideas. It's not keeping the PC from running properly, but it is annoying. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for reading the long post.
 
1) Uninstall old ATI drivers thru Add & Remove programs
2) Download Driver Cleaner and install it
3) Reboot to Safe Mode
4) Run Drive Cleaner and select ATI & NVIDIA only
5) Reboot to normal mode and make sure you have .Net 2.0 installed, then download the Catalyst 6.9 for XP and install them
6) Uninstall McAfee (BloatAfee) and install AOL Kaspersky
 
yet another Prob solved by John! BTW, next time, it is usually more accepted to bump (post a message) in the original thread to bring it up again.
 
I know you guys frown on multiple threads for the same topic. Is there a mechanism to move a thread from one board to another (in this case, from the video board to the general board)?
 
I'm glad your problem has been resolved. :thumbsup:

BTW #6 is optional but highly recommended. You'll thank me for it after you realize that McAfee is slowing your system down and eating up valuable resources. 😛 AOL Kaspersky also has a superior detection rate.

As far as to "why" the video issue happened we'll just blame it on Microsoft and pass it off as weird things happen out of the blue. I had a similar issue occur on one of my Acer demo rigs at the office. It took 2 different sets of NVIDIA Forceware drivers to work properly with the integrated GeForce 6100. Today the resolution changed by itself and it gave me an NVIDIA-related error. I took the current drivers out, ran driver cleaner, then installed the 84.21's and they work like a champ.

Is there a mechanism to move a thread from one board to another (in this case, from the video board to the general board)?

Send a PM to AnandTech Moderator. 😀
 
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