The Pulse

Q: I have developed a strange affliction with my Dell Dimension 4550 desktop. I have a Pentium 4, 2.40 processor, 1 gig of memory, and 2 hard drives totaling 160 gigs. I have XP Home and a Logitech cordless keyboard/mouse set. The problem is when I try to download a program the entire screen begins to pulsate. The only cure is to cut the power from the pc. I have 3 suspects. I installed IE-7 and find that it has some small but annoying bugs. . I suspect my AOL ISP for many of my problems and maybe the dumbest of all is that I downloaded, Super Fast Shutdown. It worked well but I uninstalled another program with add/remove programs. It turns out that SFShutdown was included so it's gone but at about the same time the pulsation began. Every other function works fine until I try to download. Not always the same program but at least 2 different ones. I wonder if you've seen this pulsation before. I have NVIDIA MX 420 video as installed by Dell. I also have a WIN-TV-350 PVR in a PCI slot. If you have any knowledge of this kind of problem I would appreciate finding out where the problem could be at least, even if it can't be resolved.
J. McGrew
A: I have seen monitor pulsations or the fading in and out of the computer screens numerous times, so I can appreciate your position. However, there can be several root causes of your problem, ranging from a bad monitor to interference from other appliances. If you hear a noise or smell a burning smell from your monitor, then you need to disconnect your monitor and purchase a new one. For visual screen pulsations and flickerings, I will start with the simplest solutions and escalate from there. At the risk of sounding condescending, which is not my intent, check your monitor cable to insure that it has a tight fit with both your computer and monitor. If you have opened up your system, it may not hurt to make sure that the video card is pushed all the way in. Next, you can use the system restore option on XP to go back to a time when you were sure that this problem did not exist. You can then download a file to see if the pulsating occurs. If it does not, then you can reinstall programs one by one. You should download a file after each program that you reinstall. This way you can identify the source of your troubles.
To eliminate Internet Explorer as the culprit, try downloading a file using a different web browser. I would suggest Mozilla’s Firefox. If you don’t have the pulsating problem then you know that it probably was the Explorer 7 install. Other possible causes are that the monitor itself could be going bad. Try borrowing a friend's monitor and see if the problem duplicates.