Can't get System Restore working b/c there needs to be disk scan first, which doesn't appear to be happening at restart because i don't see a tray or anything else indicting it has run. How long shoulld this take?

setting?

software?

browser?

hardware?

What he hell do I do???

Unplug computer

remove battery

hold down power button for 30 seconds

plug computer back up & power up the computer

after power up & everything loads put the battery back in

Hope it works

Large Hammer ?

Couple of questions:

How old is the laptop?

Does it get hot? Have you tried pulling the battery and AC adapter and letting it sit for a hour or two?

Make/model?

Does the laptop have an Intel Graphics adapter or an ATI/AMD (Radeon) or nVidia (Geforce) one? You can check by going into device manager, or even just by looking in Add/Remove Programs in the control panel (Programs and features in Windows 7 or Vista)

Can you boot all the way to the desktop in safe mouse WITH networking?

Restore doesn’t normally require scan disk. When it asks for it, there’s a reason, and you want to save all your data, in case your lil’ laptop crashes. I don't believe there's an indicator that scan disk has already run.

Right click C: drive, chose Properties, Tools then Error Checking, Check Now, the both Check Disk options “Auto fix file system errors” and “Scan for and recover bad sectors”. You’ll have to reboot.

If it’s not virus infected, XP is pretty robust, and can heal itself if you do the basics, Scandisk and Defrag.

Shadows and lines while browsing is pretty weird. Test another browser, there are several free ones.

4 yrs old

Get's hot. Already pulled battery and let it sit already.

Dell xps m1210

NVIDIA Gforce Go 740

I don't know exactly what is meant by "boot", but I am logging on to CBid in Safe Mode with Networking- if this helps to answer your question...

Anyhow, how could it be the graphics card when Outlook Express' image is fine?

Using Vista, not XPS.

Thanks...

I'm betting it's the video driver. If you just received IE 9 (they've been rolling it out to all users this month), it uses you graphics card to accelerate page rendering. I know in Firefox they have a blacklist of drivers that are known to cause issues with it's accelerastion. Try this:

Go to Control Panel, then go to internet options

After you click on “Internet Options” option, click on “Advanced tab” which is located on top right side of the internet options screen. In the settings option, de-select the option of Accelerated graphics option “Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering”. Now, click on “Ok” tab. The changes will only take place only after Internet Explorer 9 is re started.

If that works, then it is most likey the graphics driver (though it could also be an overheated video card too). Update the graphics driver and it may fix it so that you can have the hardware acceleration turned on.

Bang!!!

It worked!

Explorer 9 had to have been the problem- that's why I was trying to do a Restore.

PM your snailer with a list of preferred profiles, sizes, marques...

No reward necessary, just glad to help a BOTL out. But I wouldn't call it "fixed" yet. I would still check out the manufacturers website and download the latest graphics driver your your system. You may be able to use the generic drivers off of nVidia.com if Dell has nothing newer than what is installed, but try Dell first. Then see if after updating the driver you can turn acceleration back on.

Since you are on Vista, I am guessing that the video card itself is fine as it renders the Luna interface OK, but being that it is 4 years old there is the possibility that it could be a bit clogged up with dust too which means the graphics card might running a bit hot and the additional overhead of page rendering is pushing it over.

It isn't meant to be a reward, just a token fiver of appreciation- nothing more. I mean it.

Downside to all this is no new laptop for me, yet. July 1 would have been the purchase date so that I can expense it opportunistically, but any day during July will suffice- maybe it will fail soon...