Is it a virus - or isn't it? Why have I been put in jail?

[BALOO]

Here we go again, just in the middle of typing the Xmas letter when the screen is plagued by black vertical lines! It looks like I didn't pass Go, Didn't collect £200....
I'm then stuck with a virtually frozen screen so I re-booted - because I've got a gateway the initial screen has a gateway logo, and this also had vertical black lines - so not looking promising on the re-boot! Sure enough, the windows start-up screen was similar and then the computer hung up. I tried again with similar results but this time windows opened in safe mode after the scandisc screen which was perfectly normal. A normal looking windows safe mode screen appeared but the task bar at the bottom still has thick vertical black bars (about 1cm spacing) and if I move the cursor over the icons they distort slightly. Any window I open up has these lines all the way from top to bottom. There isn’t much that works (word for example can’t find dll files) however, MaCAfee virus scan did work but didn’t find any viruses! Anyone any ideas?
I have a feeling I’ve read about something like this but couldn’t find anything through search. Unless someone can point me in the right direction I think the next step is to reload windows98. Has anyone done this before who can give me some advice? I may be able to back-up my files (last back-up was end of Sep) but do I need to? I was under the impression that you can reload windows98 over the top of the old one and that it doesn’t affect the rest of the c drive – is it straight forward? Pleeeeeeese help!
P.S. The laptop works fine :) but I've managed to lose the double monitor icon that usually appears bottom right when I'm on the net :mad: - How do I get them back?

[FL310]

Without wanting to stress you too much...that sounds more like
a. the graphics card is not correctly fitted to the slot
b. the monitor cable is not correctly plugged in
c. the graphics adapter is broken....

good luck

[bblank]

The bahaviour described could be caused by a virus. About a decade ago there was a family of viruses called "barrotes" which caused vertical bars to appear in DOS windows. It's not your problem - I mention it only to verify that viruses have been designed to draw vertical bars on screen.

Certainly the missing dll is more symptomatic of a virus than a hardware problem. If Word launched, looked in a directory for a dll, and couldn't find it, then there are only a few possibilities. You could have inadvertently moved it yourself, an uninstall could have deleted it (shouldn't happen but it sometimes does), a virus could have deleted it or changed its name, or, in rare instances, it could vanish for unknown reasons. Search for the missing dll (Word should name it when it can't find it) to see if you inadvertently moved it. If that didn't happen and if you haven't done an uninstall lately I'd be suspicious of a virus. Why not download Frisk's free virus checker, f-protect, and see if it comes up with anything that McAfee might have missed.

Whether or not you can load Win98 over top of the old one may depend on what Gateway shipped you. Most OEM's cannot distribute the retail version of Windows. Instead they ship a recovery version that will restore your system to the state it was in when you bought it. Check with Gateway.

Assuming it was a virus, and if you are no longer infected, you might be able to just use your registry backup and replace the registry files. See
<a href="http://www.pccomputernotes.com/registry/restoreregistry.htm" target="_blank">http://www.pccomputernotes.com/registry/restoreregistry.htm</a>
However, I would suggest backing up all important files first. At the very least, make a boot diskette so that you can boot to DOS and copy all your files from there, just in case you screw up Windows.

[BALOO]

Tried most of the above - to no avail however, FL310 was quite correct when he pointed me to the graphics card. Took some photos of the screens then, armed with digital camera went to get advice from those that know at PC World.
They were most impressed 'cause, from the photos, they quickly diagnosed a blown graphics card!
So, having tried restoring windows (which now gives me an annoying start-up option - how do I get rid of that?) I parted with £70 for a new card <img src="mad.gif" border="0"> <img src="mad.gif" border="0"> and now have a perfect picture with everything working again <img src="tongue.gif" border="0"> <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Thanks for the replies and seasons felicitations to all!

[FL310]

I am glad to have been able to help....the very same problem you can have with a printer, showing you black lines inbetween your printings...

a. clean the head if it is an ink-jet
b. change the parallel port....

had these problems too often...and never happens on power supplied through an online external power supply....must be power surging