Display and SR problems in XP SP 1

[sebringt]

I have a Dell Dimension 8100 w/ 60 gb ( 2 partitions: 40 and 20 gb, respectively) 1.2 ghz processor, running XP SP 1. I have a Cybervision 19" monitor hooked up, and a nVidia GEForce 2 MX/MX400 video driver.I set the Windows Update utility to automatically update (probably a mistake, I know); when I got back from work yesterday, the display was messed up. The color settings are all wrong; the brightness and contrast are much too low, and graphics objects create dark streaks on the screen, but certains colors like light green glow like neon. I tried adjusting the monitor settings, then the Settings in the Dispay Properties box, all to no avail. I hooked my laptop up to my monitor and the color was fine, so I know it's not the monitor. I updated my MX/MX 400 video driver, and that didn't work. I tried XP System Restore, and it wouldn't let me do that, despite trying several different days;it tells me that "Your computer cannot be restored to [Date]". I know from looking at the System Restore that two XP updates, KB834707 and KB 840987, were installed at 3am Friday, along with something called Software Distribution Service 2.0. I uninstalled the two windows updates, but could not find the third program. None of these steps has helped; dispay is still bad, and SR still won't work. I'm almost afraid to install SP 2 after seeing problems people are having with it.Any ideas before I back up all my files and take it to the shop to have it formatted? I'm not a super techie, so try to keep the answers somewhere between the novice and power user levels. Thanx.

 

[Goalie]

SDS 2.0 is related to Windows Update- because MS is using this for anti-piracy and distributions of automated updates, they don't want you to remove it. What a pain.

Your best bet for fixing your video is likely to redownload the NVidia drivers for your card. Don't install yet.

Go into your Device Manager, and remove the video card. Reboot. You should now come up in a vga mode and it'll redetect your card, yadda yadda, probably have to reboot again. When the machine finally comes back up without telling you to reboot, THEN install the Nvidia video drivers and restart after that.

See if this helps.

The system restore problem you mention isn't uncommon, and sadly there's not much you can do in those scenarios. Probably you won't be able to use SR until the next checkpoint.

Antivirus and scandisk and Spybot S&D don't seem applicable here, but they are an obligatory plug for any item- those three steps can solve many many problems and prevent even more.

Hope this helps. Let us know what you try and what results you find. Btw- Welcome to Techspot! :wave: