lines on screen

My Windows 98 will start up in the safe mode okay but if I want it to start
in normal mode with start up screen is full of red and green vertical lines
with some white at the bottom and blue at the top. What is causing this?
How can I fix it?

beaver wrote:

My Windows 98 will start up in the safe mode okay but if I want it to start
in normal mode with start up screen is full of red and green vertical lines
with some white at the bottom and blue at the top. What is causing this?
How can I fix it?

I would suspect your video driver. Safe Mode puts your video in the
most generic possible mode: 800x600 with -- umm, I'm not sure how many
colors, but relatively low color depth. When you boot normally, you're
(most likely) going to tell your video driver to use a higher
resolution and color depth.

So your first step would the web site of the maker of the computer or
video array, and see if you can find a more recent video driver for
Win98. That may not be easy, since nobody is really interested in
writing drivers for Win98 today.

--
Tim Slattery
MS MVP(Shell/User)

http://members.cox.net/slatteryt

"beaver" wrote in message
...
| My Windows 98 will start up in the safe mode okay but if I want it to
start
| in normal mode with start up screen is full of red and green vertical
lines
| with some white at the bottom and blue at the top. What is causing this?
| How can I fix it?

Could be a few things.

1. A common issue which causes this problem is video driver corruption. Safe
Mode uses the "fall back" default generic monitor NOT the video
manufacturer's driver [unless it was replaced by the manufacturer]. The fix
is to download the driver for the adapter, uninstall the old, and
re-install.
This MAY, however, leave residual problems associated with old or
conflicting registry settings OR old video driver files which might still be
referenced within the registry. If this occurs, then careful review of the
registry and installation INFs might be needed to correct the problem.

2. IF you have installed any other adapters recently OR the system is old,
you may be experiencing issues related to corrosion of the contacts leaving
just the on board/chip VESA. Resolution and GUI are affected. Older systems
[really any computer] tend to need a yearly cleanup. The Gold plating on the
contacts degrades, OR the other types degrade at a faster rate. To test this
and correct, MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW ESD [Electro-static discharge routines]
and disconnect power to the computer. Clean all adapter "fingers" with a
pencil erasure, and the slots with a DAMP cloth with de-natured alcohol.

3. There are a few other potential causes, such as connection cable, monitor
"burn out", and some others. After trying the above, then further testing
might be needed should there still be issues.

4. IF this is a laptop OR LCD display, then there may be other issues. Here,
a common user is limited to correction of the driver, and testing chipset/on
board adapter with test tools.

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.org
a Peoples' counsel
_ _
~~

On Wed, 8 Oct 2008 08:20:01 -0700, beaver
put finger to keyboard and
composed:

My Windows 98 will start up in the safe mode okay but if I want it to start
in normal mode with start up screen is full of red and green vertical lines
with some white at the bottom and blue at the top. What is causing this?
How can I fix it?

It could be a RAM fault on your video card that shows up at higher
resolutions. It could also be a timing issue, in which case you could
experiment with lower refresh rates, if your eyes can stand it.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Tim, for your information, the most generic on my system in Windows 98 Second
Edition is 640x480 resolution mode with usually 256 colors but I have even
managed to get the colors down to just 16 colors. I just thought I would let
you know this is the most generic video I have been able to get within
Windows 98 Second Edition. It would not surprise me if some of my older disk
operating system games have even lower resolution than that but this is the
lowest resolution and color display I have had with just the generic VGA
driver and using manipulation on my part as well.

"Tim Slattery" wrote:

beaver wrote:

My Windows 98 will start up in the safe mode okay but if I want it to start
in normal mode with start up screen is full of red and green vertical lines
with some white at the bottom and blue at the top. What is causing this?
How can I fix it?

I would suspect your video driver. Safe Mode puts your video in the
most generic possible mode: 800x600 with -- umm, I'm not sure how many
colors, but relatively low color depth. When you boot normally, you're
(most likely) going to tell your video driver to use a higher
resolution and color depth.

So your first step would the web site of the maker of the computer or
video array, and see if you can find a more recent video driver for
Win98. That may not be easy, since nobody is really interested in
writing drivers for Win98 today.

--
Tim Slattery
MS MVP(Shell/User)

http://members.cox.net/slatteryt

"beaver" wrote in message ...
My Windows 98 will start up in the safe mode okay but if I want it to start
in normal mode with start up screen is full of red and green vertical lines
with some white at the bottom and blue at the top. What is causing this?
How can I fix it?

Back up your registry, then start the computer in Safe mode, go to
"Control Panel", "System", "Device Manager", double-click "Display
Adapters" and remove the existing display adapter. Then restart
normally and let Windows redetect the hardware. If this doesn't help,
start the computer in "Command Prompt", type the following three lines
and the manufacturer and model of the display adapter should appear
on the right side of the screen. Please note that the characters in line
2 are zeroes.

debug
dc000:0 14f
Q

Ben