Help! My kids have either been on a website or played a game which has altered the graphics settings, so when I boot their machine up the sreen only says "signal out of range". I've tried booting in safe mode and the part that I want to read is off the screen!!

i'm a bit stuck now - anyone got any ideas?

SC, in safe mode, right click on the desktop, Properties, Settings tab and bring back to a sensible setting.

However it should'nt be possible to get the signal out of range message, it indicates that the monitor has not been correctly set up in Windows, so when you can see what you're doing go to Control Panel/System/Device Manager and install the monitor correctly (update driver) so that the model number shows there.

Thanks Kayak, struggling to get it displaying in safe mode. Have to come back to it on Tuesday now as I'm too busy until then.

...I put this on the other troubleshooting thread but It's a bit busy over there.

Around 6 months ago I tried to log In to MoneyAM down the library but could not as the username was not excepted, went Into my email and found that I had been allocated another U/N.
Yesterday the same thing happened (U/N not excepted)so I just gave up.
Never happened before at home as P/W and U/N are filled In automatically, any Ideas what's happening please?

I use a Mac at home but libaries only have PCs so have no choice but to use them, not sure different operating system should have been significant but I just don't know.

I use Avant browser, never have trouble.

Never had trouble with Safari either, but only had this trouble on the library's computers, twice In 3 years.

My sons machine has an integrated graphics card an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU.
He wants to change the card cos it wont run some of his games.They need a pixel shader enabled card(Or something like that)
Can I just get him a new graphics card and slot it in.Will i have to disable the old one? How???? :-)
If he gets one of the NVIDIA Cards below will it be easier

To run correctly, Black & White 2 requires:

DirectX 9.0c
DirectX 8/9 based Video card which supports at least version 1.1 pixel shaders

Video cards based on the following chipsets are supported:

ATI Radeon 8500 9100 9200 9250 9500 9550 9600 9700 9800 X300 X600 X700 X800 X850

nVidia GeForce 6200 6600 6800 FX5200 FX5500 FX5600 FX5700 FX5800 FX5900 FX5950 PCX5300 PCX5900 Ti4200 Ti4600 Ti4800

If you are experiencing problems with your video card and Black & White 2, try updating your video card driver by
downloading the latest driver available from the video card manufacturer. If there is no improvement, try using the
latest driver provided by the video chipset manufacturer. Your video card chipset is the video processing chip located
on your video card. If there is no information in your video card manual or website, check the video card for an
identifying chip with the chipset manufacturer's name on it.

For AGP cards, you need to make sure your AGP Aperture is set correctly - For 64Mb video cards, you need at least 32mb
of AGP. For cards with 128Mb+, you need at least 64 mb of AGP aperture.
Check your AGP is working by selecting Start Menu->Run dxdiag. If AGP is working, the display tab should show AGP Texture
Acceleration: Enabled
64mb-128mb video cards require 64 - 128 mb of AGP ram on AGP systems
(256mb video cards or PCI express systems do not need this)

If you experience performance issues then please use the command line modifier 'MINSPEC' from the start menu to downgrade
the graphics shaders.

If you are experiencing performance issues on video cards with less than 128Mb of RAM then we recommend using the command
line modifier 'LOWMEM'.

Can anyone explain to me what the following site does?

It seems to me to be a proxy site for viewing web sites in a particular way. But why and what does it do?

http://cacheless.org/

Here's another on, I think:-

http://www.privoxy.org/

I've managed to get the kids computer sorted, am also going to throw some of their software out :-0

Thanks for the help Kayak.

Iain, I think you'll need to set the display resolution to VGA or some basic standard low res level first, then slot the new card in, and probably install the drivers when prompted because the card should be auto detected. I think it's unlikely you'll need to disable the card first as the new card should automatically take over. It should all run smoothly from installing the software - I assume you're running XP.

If you want a pixel shader I've got a spare black wax crayon if that would help.

Normally as a way of coming in to the site on a different untraceable IP address Doc, sometimes as a way of bypassing outgoing controls, e.g. a company or country (China) banning certain sites.

Privoxy is different. I run it. It's a proxy you can run on your own machine and program to intercept the HTML pages before they are displayed, e.g. taking out ads etc.

Iain

I think the following is the correct procedure:

1. Uninstall drivers for old card.
2. Turn off machine
3. Install card
4. Reboot.
5. install drivers strainght from the CD.

Just in case the drivers on the CD are outdated here is a site that provides you with info on the latest drivers for your system:

http://www.drivershq.com/

You can run that after you have uninstalled your old card's drivers and installed the new one.

Kayak

Thanks. Just as I thought.

I think I'll have a go at using Prvoxy and play around with a few parameters.

Not for widows or orphans Doc, not saying you're either of course :-)

Doc, won't Iain need to reset the resolution back to basic VGA before uninstalling the drivers?

Regarding Iains Graphics card issue as he has a onboard card at the moment,has he got a AGP slot or has he got to go down the PCI way,i would think most modern boards do have the AGP slot if that is the case you can get a new card from every computer shop on the planet if it is the PCI issue that is not as easy and you are limited ?????? once he has the card fitting it and setting it up is pretty ease,it just the slot issue that worries me and needs addressing 1st,me thinks !!!

Mega...

Cheers Lads.Will check slot issue later

Ian said "My sons machine has an integrated graphics card an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU."

Integrated cards are built into the motherboard which sometimes have an unused AGP slot allowing you to upgrade the video card. If not you'll need a complete new Mobo/graphics card etc. If it has an AGP slot then you'll need to know which variant of AGP (I think there are two which are not compatable). Generally you then have to fit card and switch off the integrated video in the bios on startup.

Tell you what, tell us what make your moboard is and someone will look it up for you, that's probably easiest?

Brian, Ian,

Most new machines do not have AGP slots anymore, so it will probably depend on what make it is.

I made the mistake of buying a new machine ripping off the warranty sticker to get in it to replace the cards only to find out there wasn't a slot and then couldn't take it back!

As I have multiple monitors I will have to continue building my own from scratch which is a pain.

This is the motherboard model
Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. A7N8X-VM400 Rev 2.xx
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 3.00 07/30/2004

There are available slots on board
ps.Do I get an agp or a pci card

Iain - I believe an AGP 8 (1.5v) card will be OK - even something as lowly as

128MB Sapphire Radeon 9250 AGP
22.84 ex VAT, 26.84 inc VAT

That's from cclcomputers.co.uk