I've got a 2002 Dell PC, with Pentium 3 Processor running Windows XP, and beefed up with a little extra memory.
My system was running beautifully, until a few nights ago when, after allowing a hot steam humidifier to run in the room for a few hours, the screen froze (any correlation between the steam and the freeze is purely speculation).
After shutting the system down, and allowing it to 'rest' for a bit, I turned it on only to smell burning plastic, however all seemed well. The bios loaded nicely, and windows loaded. My wallpaper showed up and programs set to open automatically did so, then, however, the screen froze and soon thereafter went black and then dark gray. It seems that the system just died - or at least the video card. It was still running, but there wasn't anything on the screen and the keyboard was frozen (num Lock and Caps Lock didn't function).
I tried turning the system off and on a few times but with the same result.
However, I found that the system would load perfectly in Safe Mode. I did a virus check and cleaned out any spyware that may have been lingering but could not solve the problem. I'm fine in safe mode but not fine in regular mode. Any ideas folks? Video card issue? I thought that was the problem, but I can run video in Safe mode, and it seems to be equal resolution.
Also, can music be played in safe mode? - because I can't seem to get mp3 files to work...is it just that they're disabled or may my audio have been fried as well?
Thanks so much.
