Montior Issues

[DragonZero]

I have a friend with an issue, he has a laptop and has discribed a problem of mulitple "screens" on his screen, aka small boxes arranged horizontally in rows each is a small replica of what the whole screen should look like....any ideas?

Also while I have your attention I myself have a laptop, the box on the power cord is getting very very hot after about 1 to 1 1/2 hours of use....anything wrong with that or is it normal (Compaq Laptop)....

[carl33p]

1) Is his wallpaper "tiled"? Or does he see mutiple "my Computer" icons, and mutiple "start" buttons?

2) I dont have alot of experience with laptops, but it seems as laptops get older they seem to heat up faster. My brother had a 17" 2.8ghz laptop that used up lots of power and was left on all day, therefore after about a year it would shut off from overheating after an hour.(Not that this should happen)
How old is ur laptop? Did it used to heat up that fast? Do u play graphic intensive games on it, or leave it on for long periods?

[DragonZero]

ok for a follow up, 1) its mulitple my computer and start buttons.....2) the laptop is only about 2-5 weeks old, and ive never noticed the power cord's box getting that hot before, and it was only one for like an hour....i play games on it but nothing too graphically intensive....Mech Warrior 4 (but i wasnt playing it this time around)

[PrkchpSndwiches]

Could potentailly be a faulty power cord, but they do tend to get somewhat hot. It shouldn't be so hot that you can't hold onto it.

[aj654987]

1) it seems like ive had this happen before but I cant remember exactly when. You need to find out if this is a hardware or software problem. Im thinking either a problem with the graphics chip or with the drivers. Try connecting the laptop to an external vga monitor (assuming it has vga out) and see if it shows the same thing. It could be some kind of loose connection path between the graphics chip the the laptops monitor (loose ribbon cable inside or something). Also you could try booting up the computer with one of the bootable linux CD's like knoppix or whatever and leave that on for a while and mess around in it and see if you get the same thing, if not then its likely a windows driver problem.

2.) if youre laptop is only a few weeks old then Id back up any data and try to take it back in under warranty. Ask compaq if they have had any recalls, also sometimes you can find manufacturers have online help forums on their site. So you could look for either compaq help forums or read some online reviews on your model laptop and see if anyone else has the same heat problems youre having.