Colors and pictures wrong on net....Please HELP!!

[Broncos]

When I go on the internet (netscape or ie) none of the pictures show up that good as far as colors go and I have faint little blue squares all over the background of everything.  Solid colors are okay like on yahoo.com the red YAHOO in the center is okay but everything else is messed up.  Someone told me that maybe it was my monitor pixels, so I tried to change that but mine are stuck at 640x480 and won't let me change it.  I don't know whats going on but it is driving me crazy.  I got this computer for free and I am trying to get it running smoothly for my sister in school.  The computer it self is 6 years old and was previously networked together in an office.  When it was there the internet worked fine.  It has a Win98 operating system.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Dilbert]

I would like some more information about your system. Can you please tell me the following?:

• What video card is it?
• What monitor do you have?
• What versions of IE and Netscape are you using?
• Do any sites work normally?

[soybean]

What color setting do you have in Display Properties?  If it's set at 256 color or less, change it to a higher setting, perhaps 16-bit color.

[Fed]

Check in your Device Manager to see if your video drivers have gone awol.

[Soviet_Genius]

256 coclours work fine for websites as i hve a SVGA 1 meg 800x600 256 colour video card on an old laptop and it still seems OK

[Broncos]

I would like some more information about your system. Can you please tell me the following?:

• What video card is it?
• What monitor do you have?
• What versions of IE and Netscape are you using?
• Do any sites work normally?

Monitor is DellE551C
Netscape version 6.2
IE version 6.0
No sites work normally
and to be honest I can't find what the video card is or if I even have one, I assume it would be in the device manager some where but I can't find it.  Thanks

[Broncos]

Check in your Device Manager to see if your video drivers have gone awol.

I checked in my Device manager and to be honest I can't find where it says what my video card I even have.  Example of what I see is...
under the category Sound, Video & game controllers I have the options of MPU-401 Compatible or Vortex AU8810 PCI Audio or Vortex AU8810 Sound Blaster Pro Emulation or Wave Device for voice modem.

Then under system devices I have a selection for Intel 82810 DC100 System & Graphics Controller.  I'm not sure if any of these are it or not.

[Broncos]

I would like some more information about your system. Can you please tell me the following?:

• What video card is it?
• What monitor do you have?
• What versions of IE and Netscape are you using?
• Do any sites work normally?

Check in your Device Manager to see if your video drivers have gone awol.

I checked in my Device manager and to be honest I can't find where it says what my video card I even have.  Example of what I see is...
under the category Sound, Video & game controllers I have the options of MPU-401 Compatible or Vortex AU8810 PCI Audio or Vortex AU8810 Sound Blaster Pro Emulation or Wave Device for voice modem.

Then under system devices I have a selection for Intel 82810 DC100 System & Graphics Controller.  I'm not sure if any of these are it or not.

[Dilbert]

You can check what video card you have with the DXDIAG tool. Go to Start, and Run... . At the prompt, type dxdiag and hit enter. It'll take a little while to load, but all the info about your system will be there. I have a different operating system, so it'll look different on yours, I imagine. Navigate to the "Display" information. You will get all information about your display there.

When you're in that screen, can you please press Alt-Print Screen, then go to paint and press Control-V? Save the screenshot as a JPG and attach it to your next post.

As I said, yours will look different, but here's mine. I for some reason cannot attach mine, but you should have no problems. Mine looks like this:

[Dilbert]

This is the image that was PMed to me:



I'm unsure of what to make of this. I'm leaning towards an insufficent video card. What do you guys think?

[soybean]

Download Belarc Advisor, install it and run it to generate a detailed report of your installed software and hardware.  Let us know what it says about the video part of your computer.

Broncos, have you opened that computer?  Do you know how to recognize AGP slots and PCI slots?

[Fed]

Running an internet acceleration program can also cause this complaint.

[Broncos]

Download Belarc Advisor, install it and run it to generate a detailed report of your installed software and hardware.  Let us know what it says about the video part of your computer.

Broncos, have you opened that computer?  Do you know how to recognize AGP slots and PCI slots?

This is what came up when I ran Belarc Advisor....I don't see where it says anything about a video part.  Let me know what you guys think.

THanks Denver

  Click here for Belarc's System Management products, for large and small companies.
 
Operating System   System Model
Windows 98 SE (build 4.10.2222)   Computer Business Solutions, Ltd. Star466
Processor a   Main Circuit Board b
467 megahertz Intel Celeron
32 kilobyte primary memory cache
128 kilobyte secondary memory cache   Board: Giga-Byte Technology Co., LTD i810-47B27X
Bus Clock: 66 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG 05/22/00
Drives   Memory Modules c,d
4.30 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
2.84 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

Verbatim 522452AL [CD-ROM drive]
Generic floppy disk drive (3.5")

Generic IDE hard disk drive (4.30 GB) -- drive 0, No SMART Driver   64 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' has 64 MB
Slot 'A1' is Empty
  Local Drive Volumes
 
c: (FAT32 on drive 0) 4.30 GB 2.84 GB free
  Network Drives
  None detected
Users (mouse over user name for details)   Printers
<file:///C%7C/Program%20Files/Belarc/Advisor/System/local/images/trans.gif>  Stat107
 
HP DeskJet 720C Series v10.3 on LPT1:
Controllers   Display
Standard Floppy Disk Controller
Intel 82801AA Bus Master IDE Controller
Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)   Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA) [Display adapter]
DELL E551c [Monitor] (13.8"vis, s/n 641801B1108K, October 2001)
Bus Adapters   Multimedia
Intel 82801AA USB Universal Host Controller   Gameport Joystick (no joystick connected)
MPU-401 Compatible
Vortex AU8810 PCI Audio
Vortex AU8810 Sound Blaster Pro Emulation
Wave Device for Voice Modem
Communications   Other Devices
Creative Modem Blaster PCI DI5633

10/100 Mbps PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
Infrared PnP Serial Port (*PNP0510)
  Creative Modem Blaster PCI DI5633
Infrared Communication Device
Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
Vortex AU8810 Multifunction PCI Platform
USB Root Hub
Virus Protection [Back to Top]  
Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition Version 9.0.0.338
    Scan Engine Version 51.1.0.15
    Virus Definitions Version 6/15/05 Rev 8
    Last Disk Scan on Monday, January 09, 2006 7:13:47 PM
    Realtime File Scanning On

[Rob Pomeroy]

The problem is that you don't have the correct graphics driver installed for your computer.  You are using the generic Windows driver which is currently giving you a maximum resolution of 640x480 (yuck) and a maximum of 16 colours (double yuck).  No way will the web look right!

Do you have the specifications of this computer written down anywhere?

[soybean]

This is what came up when I ran Belarc Advisor....I don't see where it says anything about a video part.  

The only thing in the Belarc report was the same as the report from running dxdiag, which is "Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA) [Display adapter]"  And, you probably see the same thing in Device Manager under Display Adapter.  

I believe, but am not absolutely sure, that Belarc can identify certain hardware components regardless of whether the proper drivers for the device are installed.  Therefore, this makes me think you have a generic video card; in other words, it's not a major brand and that's why Belarc does not recognize it.  

I asked in an earlier post whether you know how to recognize AGP and PCI slots in a computer?  Apparently, you have a video card in a PCI slot, since the reports say "Standard PCI Graphics Adapter".   Opening the computer and simply looking inside would immediately confirm this for anyone who knows how to recognize PCI slots.  

This reference may be helpful: How to Upgrade and Install a Video Card

Are you interested and willing to purchase a video card to replace whatever you have there?   The cost could be a low as $45 or less, and still get a card with 64MB video memory.  You could probably get a 32MB card on ebay for not more than $20.  I recently got such a card for an upgrade to my mother's computer.