Internet Explorer Flashes

I have the same problem with 2 different computers. When I am connected to the internet on ethier computer (Both running XP ) the screen flashes. Its extremely iratating because it constantly does it about every 5 - 10 seconds.

It has an effect as if I were refreshing a web page in explorer.

Both systems are virus, spyware and adware free and the only it does this is when I am connected.

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening and how I can stop it. It would be very greatly appreciated.............

 

Omega,
Do you mean two different monitors are flashing when you are connected to the internet? Or is it the same one? How often do you have the page set to refresh?

Johanna

 

It happens on 2 different systems and the page refresh is set for automatic, although I did try different settings for refreshing the pages.

I also though I'd record the monitors so people would see exactly what I was talking about, so I did that, however just before I posted that video I thought i'd check my internet connection ( I tried a different access number) and logged back on and just sat and watched my screen(s) on both systems, and discovered the screens no longer jumped. Out of everything I tried that was the only thing I didn't do

It's now been more than 12 hours and still no jumping. I should have known to try absolutely everything before giving up.

 

if it starts happening again, you may be infected with some malware, and should review Lonny's post on cleaning up a machine

 

I've noticed something on mine lately that sounds like it could be the same thing. I don't know if it's really like it's refreshing the whole screen though. It almost appears as if it's quickly drawing something on top of whatever it is I'm viewing viewing at the time. It's so fast though that you don't get a chance to see what it is. It is quite irritating though, especially when you're trying to type something. Does this sound like it could possibly be the same thing? The first time I noticed it was right after I installed the last round of MS critical updates. Did you also install them? If so, you might try uninstalling them to see if it goes away.

I tried this and it seemed to help but.... my plan was to uninstall them and reinstall them one at a time to see if I could figure out which one was causing it (if indeed, one of them was the cause). I reinstalled them one at a time with a period of 3-4 days between each one. I'd reinstalled most of them when it started happening again but the problem was, when it started happening it had been several days since the last one was installed. You'd think if it was going to cause a problem it would start right away. Anyway I tried unistalling the last one and it didn't make a difference.

I have noticed something about it though that sort of made me not continue trying to run it down. Mine seems to only do after I reboot the computer. I seem to have found a way to make it stop though (maybe). I was using it one day when it was doing this and had to leave for a while. When I got back the monitor had gone into sleep mode. When I started using it again it wasn't doing it anymore. I rarely reboot or turn off my computer and it seems that once the flickering quits, it doesn't return again until I reboot. I've been going for several days now without a problem (the computer hasn't been restarted for quite a while now either). This all sort of rang a bell in my head for a possible work around if indeed the sleep thing did help.

I use program written by Steve Gibson called wizmo. I use it for a few things but one of the things it can do is make the monitor go to sleep. I have a shortcut in my start menu for it that has the monitor sleep command in it. I created a keyboard shortcut for the shortcut in the start menu so that when I quit using the computer I just hit the keyboard combo for the short cut and the monitor instantly goes into sleep mode. So, what I've tried (and it seems to work) is when the monitor starts the flickering thing I just put the monitor to sleep for a few seconds and this seem to take care of it until the next time I boot.

I hesitate to say for sure that this takes care of it for sure because as I said, I don't reboot that often and haven't really done enough testing of it say for sure that it works. It seems to have worked the few times I've tried it though. It's something you might try to see if it makes any difference for you.

My video card is an Asus ATI 9600XT. Any chance you're using a card that uses the 9600XT chip?

 

rats - mine's just started doing it too... (I think it's the same thing from the descriptions)

...at least it did it for a while and then "Microsoft Internet Explorer has encountered a problem "

so (for once!) I sent the error report; was then offered a link for more information;

==

noticed this on a BBS page, the various elements on the page seem to affect the behaviour.

a) whole page flashes every once in a while, but not the sidebar (was showing history)

b) the ad with the beenie sent it truly bonkers, this area of the screen became seriously bad for the eyes flashing away at many Hz

c) CtrlF5 refresh gave me a different ad, not animated, was OK; the ad contained a hyperlink which toggled to the :hover colour and back again without triggering flashing - but...

d) the doubly-underlined links were interesting. Mouseover/mouseout one of these (no click) caused the whole post containing the link to flash. 100% repeatably (~30 tries)

If the post was at the top of the screen, other posts below would flash but not as badly. If the post was at the bottom of the screen, the posts above did not flash (or did so quickly enough not to notice)

==

for a while, ?perhaps since last visit to WindowsUpdate? I've noticed a similar effect with active desktop - upon which I have a jpeg, a gif and an animated gif. Out of these 3 only the anigif has been giving trouble.

It does it just after a "show desktop ", flashes quite badly for a few seconds - but then settles down and displays properly again.

I'm sure it didn't do this a few months back...

==

W98SE / DX8.1 reporting "No Problems Found "

best wishes, HJ

 

I've never had IE go down but now that you mentioned this, it reminded me. On mine, when I'm having the flickering problem, I have fairly frequent shutdown and restarts of explorer. The only thing the event viewer shows is "The shell stopped unexpectedly and Explorer.exe was restarted ". Nothing that would indicate the source of the problem. When I get the flickering to stop, explorer no longer shuts down. Apparently the two are related.

I've noticed the same thing. It seems to be at it's worst when I'm typing a reply to a message. Not much help here but I thought I'd mention it. Have either of you tried putting the monitor into sleep mode when the problem occurs?

 

not yet but I will

leaving "reset display on suspend/resume" enabled would be best I take it?

will also dust off the old dinosaur - for once having a 100MHz slowcoach might be quite useful (easier to see which screen areas are involved), less hardware acceleration features too.

best wishes, HJ.

 

I've tried everything mention in this thread and had no luck, I also tried different monitors ( I forgot to mention that before). But when I changed my service providers access number the flashing stopped. Its a few days later and still no flashing at all.

However I have noticed one interesting thing now that it was mentioned here about BBS's. Mainly this one because this is the only site I've noticed it on.
When I first come onto this BBS Explorer will partly load the page then stop and gives me an error saying something like "Explorer cannot load site requested" then I a can only click OK, then I get a page not found. Then I can click refresh and this BBS loads no problem.

When I run my mouse over ANY doubly underlined links or ads my screen goes absolutely nuts. It is alsop nearly impossible to type messages because the page jumps every 5 - 10 seconds. This is the only site this happens on and am curious to know why as well.

 

Funny this should get brought up again this morning. Last night I thought about this and shut my computer down to see what would happen in the morning. When I booted the computer this morning the flashing was back. It's been quite a while since I last shutdown the computer and the flashing thing hasn't been a problem since whenever it was I put it in sleep mode in an effort to make it quit. This morning I typed an email to my mom before anything else and it seems that it also affects OE (doesn't surprise me). I put up with it for a while to see if it would quit but it didn't. I then used wizmo to put the monitor to sleep and it hasn't flashed since. Go figure.

I don't get the ads so I don't know if they bother or not. I'll have to log out and shut my computer down and check this out some time today (curious). The typing thing drove me nuts too. Mine does it with about the same amount of frequency as yours. My monitor came close to getting wings a time or too before I figured out how to make it quit. I don't know what the cause is for sure but the fact that I'm not the only one who's had this start recently, still makes me want to point a finger at the last MS updates. That's when mine started doing it anyway. I guess it's not the end of the world. As long as I can make it quit I can live with it. Wizmo makes it easy to put it to sleep so it's no big deal.

 

Zander - I got wizmo, nice little utility! - but what I haven't got (yet) is a recurrence of the flashing problem in IE (or other program); I have had it recur on the desktop anigif but only very briefly, it went away before I could try the sleep thing

getting to think this is a GUI thing: apart from the anigif on the desktop, sometimes my "Show Desktop" shortcut is "bouncing" ie desktop appears, what was there before reappears, desktop reappears etc. anything up to ~5times over.

This doesn't seem to tally with how many windows need to get minimised, tried with 20 Windows Explorers and a whole load more buttons on a very silly-looking taskbar thinking "that should do it if anything does ", hit show desktop and - perfect. Desktop appeared first time, no flicker.

also have noticed Opera doing a (fairly) similar thing, the browser pane was affected but the sidebar wasn't. Only once though, and it cured itself after a few seconds, redrawing properly.

==

Omega - thanks for posting back about the change of access number - really quite a puzzle here. What you say seems to point towards a difference in the caching done by your ISP...

==

steaming up 2 lesser machines was quite interesting, neither of them would show the double underlined links (however much I fiddled with settings) - leading me to suspect that however they appear depends upon some accelerated graphics capability.

possible workarounds for the jumping around hassle:

1) set video hardware acceleration down a notch - on my SiS6326 this shows as "use this setting if you have problems with the mouse pointer" - I only needed to go one notch down but clearly this would depend upon specific video hardware

2) disable (javascript) Active Scripting, this loses the jumping around, makes the page load tons faster and also ?loses the double-underlined links.

HTH

best wishes, HJ

 

I hear ya. I've tried shutting mine down 3 more times this morning in an effort to see if the ad links bothered mine but haven't been able to get the flashing to occur again. Guess I'll shut it down over night and see what the morning brings.

I have to agree about wizmo. It's one of the first things I installed when I first built this computer. There's not a day that goes by that I don't use it. It's nice to be able to shutdown, restart or whatever using the keyboard. Have you tried playing with the screen saver that comes with it? You can get some pretty interesting displays with a little bit of tinkering. I don't use it for a screensaver but had to check it out. Something to tinker with when you've got nothing else to do.

 

don't you just hate intermittents if only we could suss something that would set it off reliably...

not yet, I only downloaded it earlier today. Saw the blurb on the grc site page:

(splutter) will give it a go soon...

gotta cook supper, will check back later, see if anyone's made any sense of the puzzle

best wishes, HJ

 

I went to a friends today who happens to use the same ISP I have and I tried the old access number for him to connect with and EXACTLY the same thing started happening immediately. Everything started flashing once we connected to the internet, as soon as we changed the number back again, it stopped. So I guess it has to be on my ISP's end....

As for running my mouse over links etc. here, I have no idea why its doing that... It also does it at my friends as well....

 

I've known of that happening when the cable system is being "Swept" with a sweep generator to determine nodes present. It puts a pulse signal out on regular intervals. I have not seen it affect computers but it does cause the T.V. screen to flash slightly.

Since you have dial-up they could still have a problem on down stream so calling the ISP would be in order.

 

Omega - this 5 - 10 seconds flashing thing when you are using the "bad" access number - does it happen just the same on every website, or does the page content alter the behavour, pls?

best wishes, HJ

 

Yes it happens on all websites, no matter the time of day or night. It also happens in Outlook. Nothing on the pages change, or atleast I've never seen any. I went back to my old access number before I replied to you just to make sure what I was saying was correct. I also went online on another computer (different access number) at the same time and nothing seems to change at all when I compared pages (or atleast tried to).

BTW... Just incase... The computers are on 2 totally separate phone lines so I know that can't cause the problem....

 

Omega

something to try which would only take a minute or so... (I'm curious!)

when using IE on the access number producing the flashing, what happens if you browse to about:blank

...if you still get the flashing when online but only looking at about:blank - it would rather "put the cat among the pigeons "...


best wishes, HJ

 

Same thing..... flashes, the same as everywhere else...

 

goodness - how bizarre thanks for posting back with that one

best wishes, HJ