Computers monitor going funny

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Denman

my PC has been crashing occasionally in the middle of a game , and the screen goes pale. I am wondering if there is any way to make it normal without rebooting the PC as it takes ages to do (~10 minutes )

Denman,
what you describe is likely only a symptom of the crash of that particular game. Be sure your hardware matches the minimum system requirements of the game. The game may be making an illegal call to your video card if it occurs at the same point or during the same operation. Check the website of the manufacturer for known problems and you may find that your video card cannot be used with that game. Some of these are hard answers I know, but technology is advancing so fast that it cannot be perfect.
As for recovery without reboot, that may not be possible. Once the machine has made a command, it may wait an eternity for completion. If the crash was caused by a memory overwrite, the operating system may not be able to recover.
You did not mention if this is a new problem or has always occurred with this game. If it is occurring with other apps that have worked OK in the past, it may be a sign of impending failure. When you speak of 10 minute reboots, I assume you have an older machine. If it is relatively new and had rebooted very quickly in the past, a virus or spyware may be affecting your operation.

[Brian Lesser]

As Al said, it could be Spyware or Virus. If you have any anti-virus software (and I hope you do), scan the computer (even if it takes a few hours). If anything appears, then make a time to re-format your computer.

[Denman]

its bout 2 years old , 1 ghz athalon, gf4 ti4600, 512 ram, asus motherboard (cant remember what one exactly) 1x60gb hd,
It happens from certain games only, and ive just thought that it seems to be games using openGL (Jedi acedemy, Medal of Honour).....
It has been getting faster reboot now, as i had a spybot, and i couldn't remove, and it had trouble booting into safe mode .. . . .
but thats gone ,so its more like 3-4 mins now ...

[Matt Attallah]

Hm...Taken up most of your hard drive space?

I have an AMD 1.1 Athlon w/ 256 MB of ram with Win XP home (Upgraded from ME) and 60 GB hd and it takes the TOTAL time for me from power on to me playing under my name like 3 mins tops.

I suggest you go through your HD and get rid of some of your older stuff...

For the video card - I use to have The 64-Pro that came standard with Compaq Presario systems - but found out that most openGL programs (Decent 3, AutoCad, Rhino, ect...) DID NOT LIKE THAT CARD. I have bought ATI All-In_Wonder VE (PCI Bus version)

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Denman

its bout 2 years old , 1 ghz athalon, gf4 ti4600, 512 ram, asus motherboard (cant remember what one exactly) 1x60gb hd,
It happens from certain games only, and ive just thought that it seems to be games using openGL (Jedi acedemy, Medal of Honour).....
It has been getting faster reboot now, as i had a spybot, and i couldn't remove, and it had trouble booting into safe mode .. . . .
but thats gone ,so its more like 3-4 mins now ...

Well that still seems a little long unless you are loading an unusual amount of software for immediate use. MS Office for instance likes to load little bits of itself at bootup.
I have come across spyware that interferes with video cards. I have an old ATI Wonder card and a particularly bad spy program changed it's display size and interfered with Norton. If you haven't run it yet, downlaod a copy of Adaware and Spybot search and destroy. Make sure you downlaod the latest updates as well. Between the two of these, they will find and remove all spyware. A whirring hard drive during boot and when you are not doing anything is a sure sign that somebody is getting info from your computer.
The most nasty ones I have found are related to Gator and download with Kazaa. Once you have scanned your computer look for files and folders containing Gator and anything that reports as Gain Publishing, the author/distributor and make sure you remove it. You may find install files for these programs in multiple locations on your hard drive.
I am not a fan of formatting the drive and starting over, with me it's the principle of the thing.

[evulish]

The reason I've found for the problem you're having is because of OpenGL and your game's setting. I believe it's because the game settings have adjusted the brightness of your screen using OpenGL and when it crashes, it doesn't have time to set it back. I usually fix it by opening the game and closing it again.