white dots while booting

[DJ TEEL]

once in a while during boot up,my monitor displays a blanked background with white dots and a flashing pattern of colors with letters inside in the foreground. i hope this isn't an OS problem as i bought the pc used and don't have the factory boot disc 'nor the original windows 98SE disc.

at the most i would hope it's a memory problem. i can deal with that. or a loose card.. i can deal with that.
but an OS problem? nuts...
in fact i bought xp a while back..but when it came to the software wanting to verify that i had an original windows disc? nuts....
i recently started using a different monitor..could that be my boot up problem? or maybe a display adapter problem? oh well..i'm grasping.


i love/hate computers.

[mikemizer]

it sounds like you may be describing a "monitor self test" screen.


the purpose of these screens, are to let you know that your monitor is on, and is functional...but has not yet received a signal from the display adapter on your pc.

you would normally only see these if your monitor were on, but your pc were not...but occasionally you can get them if you restart, or are booting up.

do the letters say anything intelligable?

[DJ TEEL]

just letters,lower case in fact. such as the letter 'a' with a line over it curved slightly upward at each end as you'd see in the dictionary when describing a 'short a' sound...only a few letters are displayed mainly row of 'a' and a row of what seems to be zeros or the letter O
the letters are in the foreground of flashing orange 'squares' all in a row across the screen. this display of letters on this pattern doesn't appear during every boot uo,but lately ut seems like it's two out of every 5 bootups.

seems like i wandered across a setting somewhere on my pc regarding monitor screen test...i'd forgotten about it till you brought it up..wonder if i enabled something.