Please Help. Is This Normal?

[trowand]

Hey, my PC has always been doing this wierd thing and I'm wondering if it's normal and if there is something I can do about it. Any time I do just about anything like play a game, look at my documents, or look around in the control panel, etc., when I close whatever I'm doing out and go back to the desktop, all of my icons and shortcuts refresh one by one and they each blink and show the default no 'program associated' icon until they all refresh and show the proper icon image again. Do ya understand what I mean? It's kind of hard to describe. Basically every time I close out a program and revert back to the desktop all of my icons refresh and it's annoying. My system is pretty sweet with a P4 3.0C, 2GB DDR500 and 160GB HDD. Why is it doing this? Is it normal? I'm running XP Home. THANKS!

[PeriL_CJM]

Have you made sure to install all the drivers for your ATI card? I know that after installing windows, before I install any drivers, my screen does that exact thing you mention.

Also, try messing around with different resolutions and refresh rates, there is no reason why your desktop should show any signs of slowing down, you have a great rig.

[trowand]

I can't freakin' believe it! I think I by luck/chance figured it out. Someone in another PC forum had suspected that something might be hogging my graphics memory. Well, I am getting into the t-shirt business and had downloaded free trials of Macromedia Freehand MX, Adobe Illustrator CS and Corel Draw 12 graphics suite. I downloaded all three of them and had been trying them out for free for 30 days. Well the thirty days had expired like over two months ago and I just finally deleted/uninstalled them and GUESS WHAT! The problem is gone! How about that. Those freakin' progams were hogging my system memory and/or my graphics memory. I also notice that at idle I'm only using about 17% system RAM when I was using 22-24% RAM. Now when I close out a program, the shortcuts and icons are just there. No blinking, no refreshing, nothing! Awesome!