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Corrupt text displayed

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John W. Wells

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May 8, 2013, 3:04:16 AM5/8/13
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The text displayed on my monitor has begun to show this "colorful"
corruption:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8263/8663200237_a5bffa10a6_k_d.jpg

It has increased in size (of the areas covered) and frequency of
occurrance. It corrupts text in horizontal bands (the fullwidth of
the screen) and does not seem to affect non-text areas of the display.
Notice that many lines of text are not affected in the example.

I'm running Win 7, Home Premium SP1, on a Dell Dimension XPS 435t,
with a Dell 2407WFP monitor, and ATI Radeon HD4800 display adapter.

I get the same corruption when I switch my 2407 WFP from HDMI to VGA,
and also when I attach a different monitor (VGA only).

When I showed this to my wife, she said that she gets the same thing
(though rarely) on her Inspiron 570, Dell 1908FP monitor, with ATI
Radeon HD4200 adapter!

Any ideas what's causing this? And how to fix it?!

Thanks!

John Wells

Ron Hardin

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May 8, 2013, 7:39:24 AM5/8/13
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I'd guess a software mistake, the display program not being compatible with the html or
whatever it is these days.

The text has to be scaled to fit the display granularity and it isn't always computed
right.

Something called compatibility view might fix it or might be at fault. I started
noticing crappy displays when compatibility view showed up as an option, in IE8.
--
rhha...@mindspring.com

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Steve W.

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May 8, 2013, 9:35:39 AM5/8/13
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Is this in all programs or just on the internet?
What browser(s) are you using?

--
Steve W.

Cmplx80

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May 9, 2013, 8:34:22 AM5/9/13
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This could be the result of a browser not handling what is probably a
multitude of CSS and HTML errors on the web page. If you have Javascript
turned off in your browser settings, try turning it on for a trial peek.
Also, if you're running an older browser, go to something newer that can
handle HTML5.

Frank

John W. Wells

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May 14, 2013, 8:20:14 PM5/14/13
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On Wed, 08 May 2013 09:35:39 -0400, "Steve W." <csr...@NOTyahoo.com>
wrote:
I use Firefox and ... <oops>

I was about to claim that I also use IE still, occasionally, and that
the text corrupts on it, too. And that it ocurred in my Eudora e-mail
client and in WordPerfect also.

But my wife assures me that on her computer the text corruption is
*only* in Firefox, and my testing over the past couple days verifies
that on my computer as well. And she uses WordPerfect and Word
extensively without this corruption.

So I've exaggerated the problem! It's ONLY in Firefox!

I should add that the corruption occurs "right before my very eyes,"
as it were! A Firefox screen may come up with perfect text, and a few
seconds later a band of text will be corrupted, and so on. Doing a
"Select" of any of the corrupt text instantly repairs it, at least for
a while.

Referring to Ron's suggestion, Compatibility View in IE makes no
difference (and IE text is fine anyway), and doesn't seem to be a
feature of Firefox.

Frank said:
> This could be the result of a browser not handling what is probably a
> multitude of CSS and HTML errors on the web page. If you have
> Javascript turned off in your browser settings, try turning it on for
> a trial peek.
> Also, if you're running an older browser, go to something newer
> that can handle HTML5.

I tried unchecking Javascript in Firefox, but the text continues to go
bad. And my FF is uptodate.

Thank you all for your suggestions! (Got any others?)

John Wells

Ron Hardin

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May 14, 2013, 9:08:10 PM5/14/13
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Try changing the color choices (Tools/Options/Colors) in Firefox

I set Firefox colors to not letting pages choose their own colors (to limit the monitor
brightness) with white text and light gray background, an abnormal but pleasant setting for
most pages, though sometimes buttons don't show up.

With that setting adobe .pdf behaves as you say, starting with good text but then going
corrupt, and I have to change them back to normal to recover.

Anyway that shows that color choices affect corruption in Firefox.

Maybe you can fuss with it to see what happens, or might even find it's set abnormally now.

Cmplx80

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May 15, 2013, 11:36:54 AM5/15/13
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This looks like a font issue. The corruption is appearing "before your
very eyes" because it takes time to load the style sheets (CSS). Until
that occurs, the default font is displayed. Just as a quick test, try
going into FF's Tools | Options. In Options box in "Fonts and Colors"
you should see a very standard font (like Times New Roman) displayed.
Next, select "Advanced". Now, uncheck the box, "Allow pages to
choose....fonts...". Now "OK" out of all that and see if appearance
changes. You can return and re-check the box after testing.

Frank
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John W. Wells

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May 16, 2013, 11:47:08 PM5/16/13
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On Thu, 16 May 2013 06:42:26 -0500, m...@whocares.com wrote:
>In FF go toTools- Options-Advanced-General and uncheck the Use
>hardware acceleration when available.

Hooray! Unchecking "Use Hdw. Accel." fixes it! (I hope--because the
corruption hasn't always occurred immediately, but has snuck up over
time, though usually within just a few minutes. But Firefox has been
clean all afternoon here, so it's lookin' good!)

Thanks to you all, Ron, Steve, Frank and me@whocares for your help!

John

Bob_Villa

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May 18, 2013, 7:48:14 AM5/18/13
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On Wednesday, May 8, 2013 2:04:16 AM UTC-5, John W. Wells wrote:

When I go to NOAA weather (using FF) http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Waupaca&state=WI&site=GRB&textField1=44.3546&textField2=-89.0755 Barometer and Speed are on top of each other (in today's local forecast)...I have emailed their webmaster but it has been that way for months!
I think they just write for IE and if it works...it works!


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