Windows Vista Vista Crash/Restart/Won't Start at all...

Hi,

I'm quite an amateur when it comes to computer issues but have found help on here before so am hoping someone can help again... I'll need help in baby steps though if anyone has any ideas!

My laptop, running vista, will occasionally crash, sometimes the screen will flicker with psycadelic colours or sometimes will just black out before restarting itself. Sometimes after doing this it will also fail to start too and leave me with a black screen.

I can run in safe mode with networking (hence me being able to post this!) And this is starting to get much more frequent recently and I'm not sure why...I have run adaware and avg which don't turn up anything and after that I'm stuck for what to do!

I don't know whether this is a hardware issue or a virus so wastn't sure where to post this but any help would be appreciated - please let me know what other info is needed too!

Thanks

 

"Psycadelic colours" sounds like graphics driver problem to me. When you boot to the Startup Options Menu, instead of selecting Safe Mode, select Enable Low Resolution Video (640 X 480). Let us know if that works.

 

That seems to have worked! So far no crashes after that, will I have to do that everytime I start up or is there a way to solve the problem permanently?

 

Hi,

Thanks for all the help - I have tried to update the driver but apparently I have the most up to date version, should I try to reinstall the current one? If so how do I go about it?!

Thanks again,

Jd

 

Evan, good suggestion, BUT Vista doesn't have Add or Remove Programs, it has Programs and Features (just to throw you off ). Uninstalling a graphics adapter should be handled from Programs and Features in Vista, I wouldn't expect that you should need to uninstall the adapter in Device Manager, but yes, you could check that it is gone.

Hopefully, Vista does not need "manual" uninstallation of a graphics adapter (again hopefully).

Matt
Better add a Post Script. The drivers should be supplied on a disk that you received with the computer. The drivers or updates will be supplied as a download from the system manufacturer's website.

 

I've tried reinstalling the driver and it appeared to have worked for a couple of days but the problem has come back again, and not too sure what to do now. Any ideas?

 

Do you have any programs that might automatically do an update of the drivers? Drivers can be offered in Windows Updates. Check if something might be resetting the drivers.

Did you uninstall first? I suggest you use the uninstaller in Programs and Features. It might be possible that there is also an uninstaller for similar drivers in Programs and Features, make sure you select the graphics drivers.

Matt