In the past I have set the Windows XP Power Options to turn off the monitor (i.e. put the monitor into power saving/standby mode) after 1 hour of inactivity. However, this setting no longer works. I have tried a few different time periods, and found that setting the turn off time to 1 or 2 minutes works, but it does not work for longer periods. (more…)

My computer is running an Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz with 1GB RAM processor and a NVIDIA GeForce 5600 graphics card with Windows XP Professional. When attempting to play some old games, in particular The Need for Speed: High Stakes and Midtown Madness: Chicago, these do not seem to be compatible with the graphics card. The games only run in ’software rendering’ mode, and the graphics quality suffers as a result. Is it possible to have these games run using the graphic acceleration on a new computer? (more…)

Recently I downloaded and installed the latest drivers (at the time, version 61.76) for my NVIDIA GeForce FX5600 128 MB video card. After installing the update a variety of computer games (both new and old) no longer work correctly. During game introduction movies the graphics and sound would stutter excessively and the title screens would not appear. The game would black out, freeze or the computer would close the game. All of the games I tested worked previous to installing the update. I uninstalled the update and reverted to an earlier driver. Is it possible to use the new driver without these problems? The computer is running Windows ME. (more…)

After 10 - 20 minutes of playing Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne the graphic card shuts down and produces the following message: ‘VPU Recover was unable to fully recover from a hardware deadlock and has switched to software rendering. To restore hardware rendering, you must restart your computer’. After this message, the computer is very slow. Reinstalling the graphics card driver and installing the latest driver does not fix the problem. The computer is a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz with 512 MB RAM and a Powercolor Radeon 9600XT 128 MB (DDR) graphics card. The operating system is Windows XP Professional. (more…)

In The Guide on 12 July 2004 you replied to my question regarding web pages being displayed in a small font size. The problem still persists, so I have sent you copies of a number of screen shots of various web pages to demonstrate the problem of small size that do not fill the screen, and another two websites (The Canberra Times and Virgin Blue) which fill the whole screen. The display resolution is at 1440 x 900. If I set the resolution to 1024 x 768 the print quality is distorted and is not crisp. (more…)