# breaker went, computer messed up



## rambler (Jan 20, 2004)

Ok, breaker went off on the outlets my computer was on.

Fired it back up, and the video seems to be messed up. Sound may be also. 

Most of my passwords (like to enter a message here) were not remembered. But one for one site was.

Video seems different, less features, it was jumping a bit for a while, tho it no longer jumps with the stuff I've done below...

Biggest deal I'm not getting to work is the Areo features of the display. Windows now tells me my video driver/ card doesn't support Areo. (This is the blending and blurring of window edges, looks transparent, and you can see multiple images of web pages that you have open, etc.)

My computer came stock with that feature enabled, I've not changed a thing. Windows now tells me the video card does not support this feature....

In trying to work with it, Device Manager says all devices are fine, driver is newest. At the home site of the vid card, I downloaded a large file that did install a new(est) driver, made no difference on the Areo.

I restored back to Dec 4th, only restore point in the machine. No difference.

I ran Malwarebytes, didn't see anything wrong at all.

I have antivirus software, updates several times a day.

I tried running 'Windows Update' but it fails, tells me 'Windows Explorer' stopped running and cycles in a loop that won't get me anywhere. (I can run Windows Explorer from the bottom menu just fine....) So likely another issue to figure out, but the on-board diagnostics find no problem with Windows Explorer....

Not sure what to try next, or where to start, seems to be a thorny issue.

My setup:

About a year old Dell Inspiron 580S, no hardware mods ever

Windows 7

ATI Radeon HD 5450 video card

Dell branded monitor came with the computer something like 21, 22 inches, hum says generic PnP driver, perhaps I need to check into this, special driver not generic?

Resulution recommended is 1920 x 1080, works fine in that.

I get a Windows Experience Rating of 5.0 due to the video card, when I try to get the Areo stuff it keeps telling my my video does not support that.

But it did, no hardware has changed.


I've poked pretty deep, I'm not sure what I should be looking for any more?

I'll be happy to follow up with any other info, just don't need to make this message even longer...

(I should say, the computer works fine as far as surfing, word processing, etc, has not crashed in 2 days, no _bad_ issues going on.... Feels like some settings and drivers or info needs to be cleared out, but I tried what I could figure out, not getting there.... Someone on another forum suggested a fried video card and it's operating in basic mode, is that possible?)

--->Paul


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## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

I would download your video drivers from the mfg website and install them.
Or if you have the driver disk from Dell you could load it from that.


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## WhyNot (Jun 21, 2011)

Have you tried plugging it into a different socket or if you had it on a surge protector...without it? Sounds crazy, I know.


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