What in the world is wrong with my PC??
Community Forums/General Help/What in the world is wrong with my PC??
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| Hey all, My new PC has a glitch which I originally considered to be just an interesting quirk. The mouse pointer can actually be moved off the left edge of the screen. If you move it right up to the edge, then push it one pixel further, it disappears, then reappears when you move the mouse back to the right. Okay, not a big issue. My desktop works fine, the start menu's in the right place, and my icons don't spill into oblivion. But then I ran the GIMP (an art program that I use almost all the time.) The Toolbox, the most important thing IN the GIMP, was gone. It was technically open - it was listed on the taskbar like any other window - but it couldn't be seen, accessed, used or moved. Guess what: the toolbox always starts on the left side of the screen. I tried moving it both with the mouse and with those fiddly keyboard key combos, I tried altering its position and display method in the GIMP itself, I tried everything I could think of; nothing worked. Come to find out, this glitch goes even farther. Remember the "Mystify" screen saver? It comes with almost every Windows installation; it's the one with the moving "ribbons" of lines. The lines go clear off the left side of the screen, quite some distance, judging by the angle. The 3D "flowerbox" screen saver? Same problem; the object bounces around the top, bottom and right side fine, but flies clear out the left edge. This isn't a problem with my monitor, because as I said, the desktop is in place perfectly, no spillage there. For some reason though, certain things just disappear off the left side, and ONLY the left side! Any idea what could possibly be going on?? If I can't figure this out, I can't use the GIMP properly on this computer, and that's a BIG deal for me. Oh, in case it helps, here's my PC specs: Intel D815EEA MB, from MicronPC PIII 1GHz 512MB RAM, PC133 40GB HD nVidia PNY geForce FX5200, 256MB w/ DirectX 9.x Windows XP Professional (installed from a disc) |
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| Maybe it thinks it's got another monitor and has extended the desktop onto it. Have a look in the display control panel. |
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| Thats what I was thinking, Warpy. Also, when you do have a window off of your screen, to get it back: Right click it on the Start Bar Select Move Press one of the cursor keys, this locks the mouse to the window Then just move the mouse until you drag the window back onto the screen. |
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| @Warpy: I'll check the desktop extension theory, but as far as I know the secondary display adapter (built into the MB, not used) doesn't have the desktop on it. @TaskMaster: I tried the taskbar Move option, both with the mouse and with the keyboard, but neither worked. |
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| It really does sound like it's behaving like a dual-screen setup. Note that the 2nd screen doesn't necessarily mean that it's using the onboard video adapter -- most half-way decent plugin video cards also support two monitors. (either dual DVI, dual VGA, one DVI and one VGA, or even s-video) |
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| It really does sound like it's behaving like a dual-screen setup. thats my first thought as well.. It could be a weird gfx card glitch.. hook up another monitor and try it out. or since your a programmer, you could figure out how to use winAPI calls to move around the windows and retrieve their x/y values so we could see exactly where these windows and your mouse are going... in fact why dont you write a bmax program right now to track the mouse! :) Also it could be a prank. I once pulled a prank on my friend that made his mouse, raparound on his screen... haha he thought it was funny for a while but then it bugged him to death when it hit glitches that I didnt work out in the program so I took it off. :o) haha funny memories |
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| YOU GUYS ARE GENIUSES!!! Thanks so much. It was a dual display problem; the onboard Gfx controller hadn't been turned off properly since I installed the geForce card, and the desktop was being "extended." Which for some reason doesn't include the taskbar... Strange. Anyway, I've got everything back on one monitor now, so thanks SO MUCH!!!!! 8D That extended desktop thing did give me ideas though... Like, in the future, if I ever need more width when I'm using the GIMP or something... Well, I'll know what to do now. :D |
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