Bunches of tiny Smiley Faces After Boot Up

[sug_e]

Hello All,

When I boot up my PC...after about 30 seconds (after booting to XP Pro)... my screen gets distorted and has a a bunch of tiny smiley faces. I thought maybe it was a virus)... I'm currently re installing (fresh copy) Windows XP. While in the install process (formatting the harddrive)...the screen goes distorted again with the tiny smiley faces. They aren't the smiley faces you use in chat... Anybody had this happen before...

Thanks

 

[treefrog07]

No. See if your BIOS has an antvirus setting. If it does, enable it and then try your clean install.

If it does not, unplug the electric cord from the wall, then clr_cmos with the jumpers and remove the silver battery for a couple of minutes.

Then re-install the battery, put the clr_cmos jumper in is original position, plug-in the power cord to the the wall, and power on the system and try your clean install.

 

[sug_e]

Thanks for the reply... the problem turned out to be the video card has gone bad. I'd recently purchased PNY Technologies NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS but could not install the drivers due to the distorted screen. I guess the tip off should have been the screen being distorted during the install. I removed the card and placed it in another PCI slot... which made for less distortion which in turn allowed me to install the aforementioned video card... which was purchased for use in my new Dell PD01X docking station of which didn't work with my Dell Inspiron 600m (not compatible). Into the closet the docking station goes.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-DELL-D-Dock-Docking-Station-Port-replicator-PD01X-PDO1X-/370576545053?pt=Laptop_Docking_Stations&hash=item564815551d


Thanks again

No. See if your BIOS has an antvirus setting. If it does, enable it and then try your clean install.

If it does not, unplug the electric cord from the wall, then clr_cmos with the jumpers and remove the silver battery for a couple of minutes.

Then re-install the battery, put the clr_cmos jumper in is original position, plug-in the power cord to the the wall, and power on the system and try your clean install.