Video problem?!

[depal]

Two times out of three when I boot up I get an opaque grid pattern on the monitor screen - thick black bars running horizontally and thinner green or pink lines running vertically. I have to reboot, go into safe mode, uninstall the video card (via My Computer/Properties/Device Manager), reboot, and then reboot again when the 'new device' is recognised. This can add 5-10 minutes to booting up the computer and is a pain. It first happened some 6 months after I had the computer. The company swore it was a software problem (of course!) and couldn't offer any good advice. If I format the C drive and reinstall everything the problem goes away - but comes back after a number of weeks. I have updated the video drivers several times.

It is a Mesh computer running Windows 98SE, with 550Mz Athlon, 512Mb RAM, Matrox Millennium G400 Dual Head 32Mb video card, Diamond Pro 710 monitor.

I have been putting up with this for too long and would really appreciate some advice.

Depal

[pam123]

It sounds as if something that also loads at start up is pulling a stealth mode attack on your video drivers that eventually prevents them from loading at all.
Did you add any new programs, that you're still using, around the time all this first started? Or did you change or update some program configuration?
Since you've got 98se you can use msconfig to see what loads at start up.
It's a process of elimination.
Take everything out of start-up that isn't essential and, when the video drivers behave for a few weeks, begin adding them back.
Eventually, if it's another program, you'll get the culprit.

[depal]

Thanks for the advice Pam. I don't have much loading at start up apart from system things like ScanRegistry, System Tray and LoadPowerProfile. But I do have an anti virus program and since I can't remember when I installed it I will take it out of start up and see what happens over a couple of days. I will also check to make sure that the card is firm in its slot!

Many thanks.

Depal

[pam123]

Good job.
I would eliminate LoadPowerProfile as well, most people don't have the problems with scan registry but I'd nix that one also, for the time being. You really want the minimum.
What Anti-Virus program?
McAfee, at least , has been known to cause trouble.