Garbled buttons and icons

[Dan Dare]

My computer has recently started to randomly garble icons and buttons. The attached hyperlinks still work, but it is often impossible to see what they represent. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does it would be to a whole page. I have never seen this before, and everything seems to work OK.

Should I be worried?

[fobotcso]

I've seen this from time to time and very confusing it is too! Its obviously a Registry glitch.

Usually solved in the short term by right-clicking in an open space on the desktop and left-clicking refresh.

Long-term it seems to go away by itself and as its such a minor problem I've never bothered to go deeply into it.

What version of Windows? With 2K/XP there are two or more sets of Desktop Shortcuts and Applications. Those of the "Adminstrator", "All Users" and named users. It might be of interest to see which set or sets of Icons are corrupted. But only out of interest; I don't think there is anything to be done about it.

[CBLong]

I get this too. I'm on WinXP, but it used to happen on Win95 too. I think (although I've no evidence) that it's related to Netscape on my machine - what browser do you guys use?

Technically, I think what happens is that Windows' internal cache of "bitmaps" (ie icons, buttons etc) gets corrupted in memory - ie something overwrites the bitmaps' memory with non-graphical data - the stored versions of the bitmaps on disk aren't involved. Such memory collisions would usually be catastrophic, but as Dan Dare said, it doesn't seem to cause any problems at all, besides the untidy screen!

cbl.

[Tinstaafl]

If you have TweakUI installed it has an option to 'Repair Icons'.

[Dan Dare]

Actually, its not just icons and hyperlinks, but certain picture sections of web pages also seem to download garbled (like someone has run a rubber along it to distort?). No particular ryhme or reason. Any further help?

[fobotcso]

May point to your graphics card; in particular the RAM on the card.

Suggest remove and replace the RAM chips on the card.

[Dan Dare]

As a laptop use, I would struggle to do anything with hardware. The randomness of the problem is the most confusing. For example, with my currently opn windows PPRuNe is fine, Google loads garbles in the top left corner, but sorts itself out, Outlook Express spent 20 minutes with garbled toolbar (useable, just unrecognisable) before sorting itself out. Its not likely to be anything more sinister is it?

[flyingwysiwyg]

I have had this on my laptop as well and it was the graphics card, or rather the graphics card drivers. Try installing the latest version of driver (or re-installing the driver).

You may also want to try altering the refresh rate on the card (if you can) and or running at a different resolution.

Regards,

FWyg.

P.S. Doubt its anything sinister.

OOOOhhhhh, one more thing. Does this graphics glitch occur after your machine has been on for a long time or does it happen from startup?