Very very odd black squares

Hyper visual dementia I expect.

Ludwig,
I think you crazy cursor may well be a precursor to some rather nasty things about to happen on your (windows?) machine. Just last night my cursor started erratic movements across the screen then the machine slowed down to a slow walking pace, took and age to switch off and even longer to boot up.

I at last managed to boot and then;

(1) Dump data to CD.
(2) Set system restore point.
(3) Set for chkdisk on next reboot (lots of files needed fixing).
(4) Set another system restore point (booting a bit faster now).
(5) Defrag, this took an age but now most of the files are together (back to normal speed).
(6) Run full system antivirus / spyware checks (nothing found).
(7) Set another system restore point.

Now things are much quicker and slicker with the cursor back to normal.
If your cursor is still playing up then something may well need fixing.

Roy T

No.

No SP2.

No erratic cursor.

This happens only while moving over text on a web page. The little LSD boxes trail my cursor by fractions of a second.

quote:

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Originally posted by Roy T:
(5) Defrag, this took an age but now most of the files are together (back to normal speed).

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Roy,

whoa - bad move.

If the machine is acting very slow or unreliable, this probably points to a disc problem. This is why your chkdsk had to fix a lot of files.

The defrag has moved lots of files around, and every time it reads or writes it is likely that errors are introduced. Multiply this by several million reads & writes before the defrag completes, and you've now probably hugely multiplied your problem.

I know several friends who turned a few corrupt files into a completely un-bootable system this way.

BTW, I have found that most HD problems are caused by loose cables, either at the HD or the motherboard.

cheers, Martin

E-mail:- MartinPayne (at) Dial.Pipex.com. Put "Naim" in the title.

quote:

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Originally posted by alexgerrard:
Spyware tracking your every move and waiting to empty your bank accounts and also ruin your credit rating, no doubt.

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No.

Next.

Martin, thanks for you thoughts but last night things were so bad I even went as far as to unwrap my kosker XP Home Edition disks plus the factory fresh driver and utility disks and contemplated a fresh install of the lot My machine must have guessed what I had planed so it booted and limped along for a while whill I (hope) fixed it. I have just looked again at the file system via chkdsk and after running for most of the day nothing is corrupted, bad or broken and the kit rushes along as per normal. I think I'll look at the state of the file system every now and then just to keep an eye on things.

Thanks for your advice.

Alex, last week iirc someone discovered a worm that was running about net, sneeking onto machines, activating any attached web cam and sending the snaps back to base. Now considering the uses some folks have for their web cams that idea makes my blood run cold.

Roy T

Ludders,

This happens all the time to me too. Oh wait, no it doesn't I have a mac.

Dan

Good one Danorino- check's in the mail!

Since it's Win XP, take a look in "Event Viewer" (Start / Control Panel / Admin Tools / Event Viewer / System tab).

If you're getting read or write errors they will be recorded here. If so, back up your data & replace the disc ASAP.

cheers, Martin

P.S. same works in Win2K & WinNT.

E-mail:- MartinPayne (at) Dial.Pipex.com. Put "Naim" in the title.

I get these occassional vapour trails Ludders on XP pro , I find if I defrag a X 4 Cheese pizza bung on half a dozen freshly formatted sardines and pint of brown tequila, five oranges and Bob's yer uncle, problem sorted, innit mate.

Fritz Von It'syerpixelsmate

check's in the mail!
Cha-ching! Apple and Netflix are keeping me in the posh lifestyle I'm used to. Seriously, did you get a new computer and you're just having these problems, or is this an old machine.

cheers

Dan

Dan, I decided to hang onto my current (4 year old) PC until it craps out completely or until I get a promotion, win lotto, etc. PS- I'll probably get a Thinkpad or iBook when the time comes.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ludwig:
I'll probably get a Thinkpad or iBook when the time comes.

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I've got an iBook - no dragging cursors, no iffy black boxes.....oh, almost forgot....it's an Apple Mac! Need I say more.....

JonR