Hi, for a few months now I've had a problem with all of my desktop icons rapidly flashing and my web browsers not loading.

With the desktop icons, they just flash non-stop and it's impossible to click on them.

For the web browsers not working, whenever i begin to type something, whether it be in a toolbar or on a site, the browser immediately goes to a blank screen or seems to refresh. Down the bottom where it says "Done" it flashes between "Stopped" and "Done."

This can happen from anywhere between an hour to a whole day at a time.

I've done numerous virus scans and nothing will come up.

Please help!

If you have windows installation CD or can borrow one with the same version as yours, place it in the CD drive and click Exit to close XP. Click start > Run. Type sfc /scannow (please note the space in the command) and press Enter. Let the process run to the end. This process replace corrupt system files with fresh ones.

The last couple days I've been trying to find the cd or find a friend that has it, so far no i know has it.

So are there any other possible options?

Regarding the desktop icons: Use this link to Kelly's Korner. go to line no. 195, on the right side. Click and save the file to your desktop. Run it from there (instructions available at the top of the page).

Regarding the browsers: have a look in Device Manager and report if there is a yellow question mark near Network Adapters. If there isn't, use the links from my list below to repair tcp/ip and repair wisock.

I just finished doing everything you said and once i got back to the desktop after my computer restarted the problem started right back up again.

Wow, that's an interesting problem. Some monitors, the older CRT type, are designed to flash when certain colors are displayed. This only applies to the 16 color system, but the icons may only use 16 colors. You could try a different monitor and you could check the display settings, or just change them.

Thanks for your input but that's definately not the problem.

The flashing has moved to inside the folders on the desktop now, aswell as msn messenger and itunes.
This is just getting extremely frustrating now, i can't do anything on my computer anymore.

It's probably some random virus or something, but I can't go on with my computer being like this.

Boot the computer to other then normal mode by clicking F8 when you boot the computer. A menu of boot options should open. Choose to boot to VGA and let us know what happens.

The computer booted in vga mode but i still had all the same problems.

It could be a problem with your video card, either with the hardware or software (driver). Please do this:

1: Go to Device Manager, expand (click +) Dispaly Adapters. Right-click the driver and uninstall it. Reboot the computer, let windows install a generic driver and see how the computer reacts.

2: If still no good see how many video connections you have at the back of the computer. If it's a desktop you may have two connectors. If so, move the monitor's cable to the second connectors and see what happens.

I uninstalled the driver and rebooted the computer, once i installed them back in it worked for about 20 minutes and then everything started flashing again.

When i moved the monitor's cable over, nothing was different.

Have you tried to run the computer with another monitor? If not, please do.

Right-click on your desktop > properties > settings > advanced > > monitor. What is the refresh rate of the monitor?

I got the monitor from my brother's room, we have the exact same one and everything was still flashing.

The screen refresh rate is at 60 hertz.

Is it possible that you swap video cards with your brother's computer? My gut feeling is that you have a hardware problem but I can't be sure at this point of time. It could help a lot if you could get another video card. Also, I understood from previous posts that you have two video cards on your computer, one integrated with the motherboard, the other an add-on one. If I am correct, remove the add-on card entirely, connect to the integrated card and see what happens.

Double post. Sorry.

This post has been edited by The Skeptic: Jul 26 2008, 03:35 AM