color changed

[weston]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

I've had ongoing problems with my 13-day old Gateway with Windows XP,
seemingly due to all the updating and reconfiguring it took to get XP to work
with older applications and my printer. I've received several service host
error report messages, several days ago the sound stopped for no reason
(uninstalling Realtek fixed that), and yesterday my backup program stopped
working and my colors changed. The desktop turned from teal to yellowish
green and the text changed from white to yellowish. A Gateway tech had me
do "Big Fix" and nothing changed. He said I have to do a System Restore to
get XP back to its original state. Tomorrow is the last day I can return my
computer to the store where I bought it. What would cause colors to change
by themselves?

 

[Malke]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

Weston wrote:

> I've had ongoing problems with my 13-day old Gateway with Windows XP,
> seemingly due to all the updating and reconfiguring it took to get XP
> to work
> with older applications and my printer. I've received several service
> host error report messages, several days ago the sound stopped for no
> reason (uninstalling Realtek fixed that), and yesterday my backup
> program stopped
> working and my colors changed. The desktop turned from teal to
> yellowish
> green and the text changed from white to yellowish. A Gateway tech
> had me
> do "Big Fix" and nothing changed. He said I have to do a System
> Restore to
> get XP back to its original state. Tomorrow is the last day I can
> return my
> computer to the store where I bought it. What would cause colors to
> change by themselves?

It's a bit hard to say because according to your post you've installed a
lot of hardware/software that isn't natively compliant with XP. There
is no way to tell what has changed or what you've done from a newsgroup
post.

I would uninstall/reinstall the video drivers, using the ones that came
with the Gateway. If that doesn't work, either take the machine back or
take it to a computer professional and have them look at it.

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

Problems with the video driver?

"Weston" wrote:

> I've had ongoing problems with my 13-day old Gateway with Windows XP,
> seemingly due to all the updating and reconfiguring it took to get XP to work
> with older applications and my printer. I've received several service host
> error report messages, several days ago the sound stopped for no reason
> (uninstalling Realtek fixed that), and yesterday my backup program stopped
> working and my colors changed. The desktop turned from teal to yellowish
> green and the text changed from white to yellowish. A Gateway tech had me
> do "Big Fix" and nothing changed. He said I have to do a System Restore to
> get XP back to its original state. Tomorrow is the last day I can return my
> computer to the store where I bought it. What would cause colors to change
> by themselves?

 

[weston]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

"Malke" wrote:
> It's a bit hard to say because according to your post you've installed a
> lot of hardware/software that isn't natively compliant with XP. There
> is no way to tell what has changed or what you've done from a newsgroup
> post.
> I would uninstall/reinstall the video drivers, using the ones that came
> with the Gateway. If that doesn't work, either take the machine back or
> take it to a computer professional and have them look at it.
> Malke
> -- >
It seems unlikely that the tech person who made all these changes would have
messed with the video drivers. Today I noticed the colors on my HP / XP
laptop, which I love, are 1280x800 (Multiple Monitors)(?) on NVIDIA GeForce4
440 GO 64M, and the colors on my desktop, all of which I dislike are 1024x768
(I think it was lower and I moved it up) Plug&Play Monitor on
ATIRADEOIXXPress200 series (Highest 32-bits). Example: Azul centered on my
laptop is a beautiful bright sunny day. The same thing on my desktop is a
dark stormy day--scary looking.

 

[weston]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

"Weston" wrote:
Today I noticed the colors on my HP / XP laptop, which I love, are 1280x800
(Multiple Monitors)(?) on NVIDIA GeForce4 440 GO 64M, and the colors on my
desktop, all of which I dislike are 1024x768 > (I think it was lower and I
moved it up) Plug&Play Monitor on ATIRADEOIXXPress200 series (Highest
32-bits). Example: Azul centered on my laptop is a beautiful bright sunny
day. The same thing on my desktop is a > dark stormy day--scary looking.

An Internet Search has has revealed that the Gateway 827GM has an
integrated, shared memory issue video card that others have discussed in
forums, as far as replacing it with a better one. That probably doesn't
explain why my colors changed, but it does make me think I'm not the only one
who wasn't happy with the colors, right from the beginning.

 

[weston]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

On 7/18, two weeks after setting up my new Gateway 827 (ATI Radeon video
card), I described to this forum that my screen colors had changed, from
beautifully pure white and blue, to cream-colored with a yellowish-green
cast. Every effort to change the colors in the Control Panel failed.

On 7/23, suddenly, without any intervention by me, the colors changed back
to totally wonderful bright blues with pure white screens on which to type my
document and email texts.

Just now, 8/9, with no action on my part, the screen colors have changed
again, back to the very distressing shades of cream. My desktop has changed
from bright blue to purple.

Can anyone tell me what's wrong?

JW

 

[weston]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

During the two weeks when I was experiencing the bad screen colors, I was
also receiving Windows Service Host error messages, which stopped when the
colors got bright again. This morning, after the color changed, I rebooted
and again got one of those messages. Anyone know what could be wrong?

JW

"Weston" wrote:
> On 7/18, two weeks after setting up my new Gateway 827 (ATI Radeon video
> card), I described to this forum that my screen colors had changed, from
> beautifully pure white and blue, to cream-colored with a yellowish-green
> cast. Every effort to change the colors in the Control Panel failed.
>
> On 7/23, suddenly, without any intervention by me, the colors changed back
> to totally wonderful bright blues with pure white screens on which to type my
> document and email texts.
>
> Just now, 8/9, with no action on my part, the screen colors have changed
> again, back to the very distressing shades of cream. My desktop has changed
> from bright blue to purple.
>
> Can anyone tell me what's wrong?
>
> JW
>
>
>
>
>

 

[Malke]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

Weston wrote:

> During the two weeks when I was experiencing the bad screen colors, I
> was also receiving Windows Service Host error messages, which stopped
> when the
> colors got bright again. This morning, after the color changed, I
> rebooted
> and again got one of those messages. Anyone know what could be
> wrong?
>
> JW
>
> "Weston" wrote:
>> On 7/18, two weeks after setting up my new Gateway 827 (ATI Radeon
>> video card), I described to this forum that my screen colors had
>> changed, from beautifully pure white and blue, to cream-colored with
>> a yellowish-green
>> cast. Every effort to change the colors in the Control Panel failed.
>>
>> On 7/23, suddenly, without any intervention by me, the colors changed
>> back to totally wonderful bright blues with pure white screens on
>> which to type my document and email texts.
>>
>> Just now, 8/9, with no action on my part, the screen colors have
>> changed
>> again, back to the very distressing shades of cream. My desktop has
>> changed from bright blue to purple.
>>

You have some hardware failure - either it is your monitor or your video
card. The newness of the hardware is irrelevant - usually if hardware
is going to fail it will do so fairly quickly or go for years.
Troubleshoot by connecting the computer to a different monitor. If the
problem follows you, then you know it is the video card. Since this is
a new computer it is still under warranty. Have Gateway replace it.

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

 

[weston]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

"Malke" wrote: You have some hardware failure - either it is your monitor or
your video card. The newness of the hardware is irrelevant - usually if
hardware is going to fail it will do so fairly quickly or go for years.
Troubleshoot by connecting the computer to a different monitor. If the >
problem follows you, then you know it is the video card. Since this is > a
new computer it is still under warranty. Have Gateway replace it.>

I don't have another monitor to test it on. It would be too bad if it were
my 5-year-old Compaq MV920 monitor causing the problem, because I went out of
my way to buy my new Gateway *without* a new monitor in order to save money.
It was confusing, because some package deals that included beautiful new
(LCD?) monitors seemed not to cost any more, and that didn't make sense to
me. Out of necessity, I was fixated on trying to save money, and that may
have been a bad decision, even without this color problem. Unfortunately,
color has a serious effect on my morale, which is why this is causing me
stress. It's not just about aesthetics.

JW

> Malke
> Elephant Boy Computers
> www.elephantboycomputers.com
> "Don't Panic!"
> MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

> Weston wrote:
> > During the two weeks when I was experiencing the bad screen colors, I
> > was also receiving Windows Service Host error messages, which stopped
> > when the colors got bright again. This morning, after the color changed, I
> > rebooted and again got one of those messages. Anyone know what could be
> > wrong?
> > JW
> >
> > "Weston" wrote:
> >> On 7/18, two weeks after setting up my new Gateway 827 (ATI Radeon
> >> video card), I described to this forum that my screen colors had
> >> changed, from beautifully pure white and blue, to cream-colored with
> >> a yellowish-green
> >> cast. Every effort to change the colors in the Control Panel failed.
> >>
> >> On 7/23, suddenly, without any intervention by me, the colors changed
> >> back to totally wonderful bright blues with pure white screens on
> >> which to type my document and email texts.
> >>
> >> Just now, 8/9, with no action on my part, the screen colors have
> >> changed
> >> again, back to the very distressing shades of cream. My desktop has
> >> changed from bright blue to purple.

>

 

[Malke]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

Weston wrote:

> "Malke" wrote: You have some hardware failure - either it is your
> monitor or your video card. The newness of the hardware is irrelevant
> - usually if hardware is going to fail it will do so fairly quickly or
> go for years. Troubleshoot by connecting the computer to a different
> monitor. If the > problem follows you, then you know it is the video
> card. Since this is > a new computer it is still under warranty. Have
> Gateway replace it.>
>
> I don't have another monitor to test it on. It would be too bad if it
> were my 5-year-old Compaq MV920 monitor causing the problem, because I
> went out of my way to buy my new Gateway *without* a new monitor in
> order to save money. It was confusing, because some package deals that
> included beautiful new (LCD?) monitors seemed not to cost any more,
> and that didn't make sense to
> me. Out of necessity, I was fixated on trying to save money, and that
> may
> have been a bad decision, even without this color problem.
> Unfortunately, color has a serious effect on my morale, which is why
> this is causing me
> stress. It's not just about aesthetics.

If you don't have another monitor, take the machine to a professional
computer repair shop (not your local equivalent of BigStoreUSA) and
have them do the diagnosis for you. It should not be particularly
expensive and will only take a few minutes.

Malke
--
MS-MVP Windows User/Shell
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic"