Monday, March 2, 2009

Help! Computer Troubles Are Scaring Me!

Yesterday while on my computer, it acted weird. All of a sudden, it only showed the top half of the screen and the line across the middle jiggled up and down, then went to a solid skinny line across half the screen and the top half went dark too. Oh, oh! What's going on? Can anyone tell me what this means? I hit a bunch of keys, ctrl-alt-delete, tried manually turning it off--didn't let me, Esc several times and finally, it came back like normal and worked.

This morning, it did the same thing when I turned it on. It took 20 min. to get on this morning so I backed up my few important files to a disk. When I tried doing my password one though, I got some stupid message that said I don't have authority to save it here, do you want to save in documents and to "contact my administrator." I AM THE ADMINISTRATOR!

Is it time for a new computer? Is this a warning signal? Or, hopefully, is it just some minor thing that can be fixed. Anyone out there who can advise me as to what to do?

UPDATED 3/2/09 7:40 P.M.:
I checked with one of our computer people at work and she thought I might need a new monitor.

10 comments:

Daisy said...

I wish I could help! All I know is that doesn't sound too good. Do you have an external hard drive so you can back everything up, just in case? The worst thing that happened when I had my computer problem is I lost some photos because I hadn't backed up in a while.

Anonymous said...

I wish I could offer some insightful words too. I've had a lot of weird things happen to my computer, but not what you described. Good luck with it.

Anonymous said...

Could it possibly be a virus? Do you have go back or system restore? Did you downloaded any programs right before this happened. If you have system restore try going back to a time before this started happening.

The Silver Age Sara said...

Karen,
You might try email Alan through Facebook or through Entrecard. I have both McAfee and AdAware running and when I'm dropping cards, lots of times I'll get messages that they have stopped me from connecting to a "malicious site" so maybe you picked up a virus? I don't know enough to help you though.
Just one suggestion, do you have a restore point set and can you turn it on enough to get back to that restore point?

Sandee said...

Do a virus scan is the first order of business. You just may have a bug of some sort. Entrecard can bring problems if folks don't have a good virus program.

I hope you figure this out. Have a great day. :)

Anonymous said...

I am not a computer geek myself and I know exactly what you are going through. I feel the same way everytime my computer does something like that... it really freaks me out.

What I usually do is to clean or scan or defrag or delete those temporary files, cookies and other things from internet option on my computer every now and then and of course I have AVG for virus protection.

Anonymous said...

Daisy--I know, I don't think it is good either. I do have all my photos also on CDs and not too much other stuff to worry about. The few documents I do have that are important are also copied to disks.

Chris--Thanks.

Jude--I don't think it's a virus because the speed seems normal and I didn't download anything lately. I did a scan too when I got home today from work and only 1 trace showed that said it was resolved.

Mountain Woman--I did send Alan a message but haven't heard back yet.

Sandee--I have Norton virus protection which I keep updated.

Ruthinian--Thanks for your suggestions. I did clean the disk and checked to see if I needed to defragment but it said not necessary. I generally do this the beginning of each month on a regular basis.

Alan said...

I didn't get any message, anyways,

could be a few things, hard to do not in person.

I use adrive.com and box.net to back up files, was free when I joined.

http://skydrive.live.com/ from microsoft is very good also for backing up files.
------------------------
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-US/default.htm

you should check out all the good security info and free software from microsoft to start with. Windows OneCare is good and has free trial.

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if you only need a new monitor, don't pay more than 5 bucks for a CRT (big old heavy ones)

BeadedTail said...

I hope it's only the monitor causing the problem and not something more serious that could result in much more money to fix or replace.

Anonymous said...

Hi Karen,

From the description of the "problem" that you gave, it is most likely that Monitor that is about to end its electronic life-span.

If at all it is a virus, the screen would not reset as the virus program would be in control throughout.

About the password thingy, it's a default Microsoft program embedded with Windows that allows only the Administrator to perform backup function. You'd have to log in as Admin in order to perform that function and not log in as User.

Last but not least and this is really a long shot possibility. If your computer has been invaded by a hacker, you computer can be controlled with hacker's programs to give you those kind of displays that you related. That means the hacker has your IP Address and he is controlling your computer with the aid of a proxy program. I have done this before as a joke with some of my friends just for fun. But it can also be used for serious invasive purposes if it is not used for fun intentions.

Just my 2 cents.

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