OT: jumping screens

Lili wrote on 6/27/2006, 9:13 AM

Can anyone hazard a guess as to why anything on my computer screen is frantically jumping up and down, not only in Vegas, but Word, email, etc.? The Vegas timeline also jumps back and forth and in and out, so it's impossible to edit.

I did a complete virus scan that turned up nothing and now I'm dreading the arrival of the computer guy tomorrow night, telling me that it's a hard drive failure. Does that sound like it may be the problem, or am I conjuring up a worse-case scenario?

Thanks for any insight from any one of the experts out there or someone who may have experienced a similar problem in the past.

Comments

AlanC wrote on 6/27/2006, 9:32 AM

Lili

Our offices are directly underneath an overhead electrified railway. When an express train goes hurtling over us, it sometimes causes the screens to jump up and down / wave about. (Not the actual boxes, just the display).

The problem settles as the power lines stop waving.

Alan

Lili wrote on 6/27/2006, 11:30 AM

Thanks Alan, but that for sure is not the problem. It is constant does not settle down. I was wondering if this is symptomatic of a hard-drive gone corrupt?

Since my previous post, I rebooted and unplugged computer and did a System Restore, but nothing has changed.

busterkeaton wrote on 6/27/2006, 11:43 AM

I would check your video card.

Lili wrote on 6/27/2006, 6:09 PM

Thanks.....I checked every hardware item in the Device Manager and they all indicated everything working properly. I'll just have to wait and see what the computer guy tells me tomorrow - oh well - it served as a good reminder to back up all vids and critical information!

farss wrote on 6/27/2006, 6:19 PM

Are you using a CRT or LCD monitor?

If it's a CRT sounds like you've lost vertical sync.
If it's an analogue connection to an LCD I think a similar thing can happen. As said above check the video card, if it's a fault in the analogue output circuits diagnostics are unlikely to find it. Could even be a faulty / partially unlugged cable between the video card and monitor.

Almost 100% certain it is NOT a HD problem, a power supply would be more likely.

Bob.

Lili wrote on 6/28/2006, 6:41 AM

Thanks Bob - I sure hope you're right about it not being a HD problem! Anyway, monitors (dual) are LCD and I've thoroughly checked cable connections and even cleared away all the dust bunnies hiding around the mass of wires behind the computer desks - just in case.

I may not have been specific enough by describing the problem only as "jumping screens" - that IS in fact what happens within Vegas where the timeline stretches in and out (from short to long - quickly- over and over), but when I try to read anything from the web, in word, or even click on an item in the Explorer window, the scrollbar moves up and down very quickly, all BY ITSELF, making it impossible to click on anything!! I'm using my second computer to type this.

One more strange thing that may be a clue - last night, for about 20 minutes, I thought the problem had corrected itself because I was able to edit part of a project before it started shifting back and forth again. I shut down at that point hoping that all might be right again this morning, but it's as bad as ever. Would like to be able to cancel the computer repair guy coming tonight, but it seems like I've exhausted pretty well everything I can check on my own.

If anyone else has another suggestion I could scope out in the meantime, please send it along and I'll keep on trying. thanks again:-)

AlanC wrote on 6/28/2006, 7:48 AM

Lili, is this happening to both of your LCD monitors and if so is it identical on both?

Former user wrote on 6/28/2006, 7:56 AM

Could it be related to REFRESH RATE?

Right Click on your Desktop and select PROPERTIES>SETTINGS>ADVANCED>>MONITOR and see what the REFRESH RATE is set for.

Also, if you have another mouse, try changing it out.

Dave T2

johnmeyer wrote on 6/28/2006, 11:19 AM

You have to take a logical approach to troubleshooting:

1. Try a different monitor. If it goes away, then the monitor is the problem.

2. If you have System Restore enabled, "roll-back" your computer to a time before the problem happened. If the problem still happens, then software is not the problem.

3. Try a different video card. The device manager will tell you nothing about the video card. I just replaced the video card in a laptop after exhausting all other possibilities, and it now works fine.

Grazie wrote on 6/28/2006, 11:20 AM

Sometimes I've had to "re-seat" a video card. That's about as far as I will go with these . .THINGS!

Grazie

MarkWWW wrote on 6/28/2006, 11:36 AM

Hmm, that sounds to me as though you may have a problem with your keyboard (or possibly mouse). What I'm guessing is happening is that one key is stuck and is auto-repeating, causing the application to continually respond to it. The different behaviour in different applications is because the stuck key has a different meaning in the different applications.

To check if this is indeed the problem you can try swapping the keyboard (and mouse perhaps) with one from another PC if you have one available.

Mark

Grazie wrote on 6/28/2006, 11:38 AM

Any Coffee spills lately?

johnmeyer wrote on 6/28/2006, 12:16 PM

Hmm, that sounds to me as though you may have a problem with your keyboard (or possibly mouse).

That's a really interesting insight. I wouldn't have thought of that. Definitely worth a try.

Lili wrote on 6/28/2006, 2:37 PM

Thanks for all who responded:

ALANC - Yes, both monitors are affected.
.
DAVET2- I'm not able to click on anything because the text jumps up and down too fast.

Johnmeyer - have already tried the system restore (had high hopes for that one!)

GRAZIE - I'll leave reseating the video card up to the computer guy tonight, if indeed that's what it is - not into fixing these THINGS myself, I'm afraid. No coffee, tea, et al. spills

MARK- no stuck keys and my mouse is a wireless and has fresh batteries.

I'll let you know what the outcome was later tonight - keeping my fingers crossed that it's nothing "serious". Thanks all again.

Lili wrote on 6/28/2006, 3:53 PM

Well - didn't I say I put in fresh batteries?? - at least I thought they were fresh!

I don't know what made me decide to take them out and put them in my battery tester, but I did and one of them was low. As soon as I replaced them with 2 fully-charged ones, the problem was GONE!! Yaaaah:-) Thanks to everyone for all the great tips - I'm sure they'll come in handy someday!

johnmeyer wrote on 6/28/2006, 6:14 PM

Give credit to Mark. He had it nailed. There was something about his post that made me think he had an insight ...