up vote 1 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

This morning, when I turned on my home PC, it acted very strangely.

The display was very slow in responding. For example, whatever program I had up, when I closed any window of that program, a ghost image would appear and striated lines, of that window. It would stay there for a while, and then finally go away.

Also, the mouse would be significantly delayed in moving around Windows and typing anything would be seriously delayed. I have no idea what's going on, or why. This sort of behavior on that PC is very odd, as it's a relatively new PC (about 2 years old). It's an HP Pavilion Elite, quad-core processor.

It has been a solid machine for me, so this behavior is really out of the ordinary. The only thing new, is I installed Intuit's Quicken 2012 yesterday.

link|improve this question
69% accept rate
look in the device manager, see how your drivers are doing. |control pannel|system|Device manager|Display adapters. – Psycogeek Oct 10 '11 at 19:32
It appears that it might be the monitor. Last night it looked like it was working fine. But this morning it didn't work at all. Now the PC is up, but I've got nothing on the monitor. Is there a way of shutting down Windows gracefully, even though I don't have video to select shutdown? – Rod Oct 11 '11 at 14:11
Remote Desktop, if it's already set up and you have another PC, would let you connect and close down Windows. Also, on most modern Windows installations tapping the power key will either shut down or hibernate your PC. – CarlF Oct 11 '11 at 20:01
Thank you, I'll give both a try. – Rod Oct 11 '11 at 20:51
feedback

1 Answer

up vote 4 down vote

A simple diagnostic tool is to boot off a Linux LiveCD (e.g. Knoppix). If the video is still screwed up in Linux, it's a hardware problem. If not, it's a Windows issue and almost certainly will be fixed by a System Restore using a restore point from before the problem.

link|improve this answer
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.