Hi Zep, Here's the information from the Whocrashed report. System Information (local) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- computer name: LYNNDELL windows version: Windows XP Service Pack 3, 5.1, build: 2600 windows dir: C:\WINDOWS Hardware: Inspiron 530, Dell Inc., 0FM586 CPU: GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz Intel586, level: 6 4 logical processors, active mask: 15 RAM: 2950799360 total VM: 2147352576, free: 2022486016 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crash Dump Analysis -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crash dump directory: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump Crash dumps are enabled on your computer. On Tue 6/10/2014 9:46:41 PM GMT your computer crashed crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini061014-01.dmp This was probably caused by the following module: win32k.sys (win32k+0x5FC9E) Bugcheck code: 0x1000008E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFFFFFBF85FC9E, 0xFFFFFFFFADB9BAE4, 0x0) Error: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System company: Microsoft Corporation description: Multi-User Win32 Driver Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error handler did not catch. This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One crash dump has been found and analyzed. No offending third party drivers have been found. Connsider using WhoCrashed Professional which offers more detailed analysis using symbol resolution. Also configuring your system to produce a full memory dump may help you. Read the topic general suggestions for troubleshooting system crashes for more information. Note that it's not always possible to state with certainty whether a reported driver is actually responsible for crashing your system or that the root cause is in another module. Nonetheless it's suggested you look for updates for the products that these drivers belong to and regularly visit Windows update or enable automatic updates for Windows. In case a piece of malfunctioning hardware is causing trouble, a search with Google on the bug check errors together with the model name and brand of your computer may help you investigate this further. ------------------------------------------------------------ I'll try reinstalling Firefox, but I'm doubtful because during the course of today - after my initial Firefox difficulties, I did update from Firefox 29 to Firefox 29.0.1. So I can re-install 29.0.1, but installing it this afternoon did not fix the problem. I'll check back later. And now I'll reinstall. Thank you. Lynn.

FWiW The Lenovo OneKey Recovery. It loads its own recovery environment but it does use the laptop display... and there are several mouse clicks to be able to use it. Lenovo has a couple of Recovery partitions & will load the operating system to the drives to a like new state. It also has restore backup and images capabilities if you set it up to do so from within windows originally. Sounds like the display or display adapter is bad, as it wont even run the display from outside of windows correctly. Or possibly the display drivers have been given a virus - Hooking up a separate monitor, if it works..run a virus scan - Or use the OneKey recovery to bring it back to the like new state, both might be might be worth a try.. before returning it to some distant repair center. I surely would do it here. The OneKey virus scan is actually McAfee that updates and scans boot sectors of all partitions and offers a quick or full everything scan... very long scans both of them. Its nice to have made the Recovery DVD Disks and keep those stored away safely too, for when the hard drive fails or becomes not accessible.

After you have been surfing the web for awhile, a lot of temporary files gets stored on disk. Some of these are used to quickly display the contents of re-occuring frames on a page. You can clean up your hard drives with a built-in utiltiy in Windows. Double-click "My Computer" (or single click depending on your settings). My Computer> right click on a hard drive> properties> Disk Cleanup. The system will compute the amount of space used by temporary files and display the results. Highlight (click on the selection box) the files you'd like to remove, then click "ok" or "apply" whichever is applicable. The two biggest space hogs are: Temporary Internet Files Temporary Files These can be safely removed, however, there may be minor information 'remembered' in these files. The next time an old site is re-visited, it may take a little more time to load the page because it is starting with a clean slate. As you brouse, new files get written to the temporary space on your disk. Another file that can grow to large size is the browsing "history" file. This is the file where the URLs( addresses of sites visited) are kept. There are user settings to control the size of this file. To access in Win XP: Control Panel > Internet Options > General Tab > On the general tab, find "Browsing History" and click on "settings". Near the bottom of the "settings" panel, find "no. of days" to keep history. A common setting is 20 days. Set this to whatever you like. Addresses (URLs) older than the setting will be dropped off the list. These are the addresses that appear in the drop-down list when you click on the down caret next to the address box at the top of your browser.

Amen to that, Elmer! There were certainly a lot of suggestions I found that I needed to weed out what might be useful and what not, but felt I was in over my head. However, desperation can make us try things that maybe we shouldn't. The return of the blurring of every picture in my computer, in addition to the ever-present font blurring, may ironically have been brought on by something I did, trying to fix things. By the way, I didn't get back to answering you before, but my computer is about 4 years old, whereas the tricky monitor may be 7 or 8. I know the monitor's age because when we bought my present PC, my husband (not needing the space I do for music and pictures) got my old one, bought in 2010, but I kept the monitor that had come with it. We got a new, much bigger one for him for his bad vision. I wonder, what is the average life of a hard-worked monitor? Andi: I am so pleased that my troubles ended up helping you solve yours! My husband has twisted eye nerves and glaucoma and his sight has been slowly declining for years; he uses a magnifying glass to read books now. I am so sorry you are suffering from macular degeneration; that is a horrible thing to have to cope with, and I hope you will be able to keep enjoying your computer for a long time to come. Rose: No worry, I can see the screen just fine now, without the distraction of those shadows. In youth, I had better than 20/20 vision. Now it's hard to thread needles and I need glasses to read the running news notices at the bottom of the TV (admittedly, it is the smallest Samsung we could find), as well as to drive and read signs, but not for computer things... Though if you see me at a distance on the street or in a store, don't be surprised if I don't recognize you until we get closer! Having reached 80, I am not complaining, so long as the rheumatism allows me to keep walking. A shout-out to everyone here who is standing up against the indignities and inconveniences of age! It was encouraging to know there are some other elderlies, as a foreign friend once called us, still keeping their joy in life. And to any young whippersnappers, you'd better hope you will be where we are one day, indignities and all, the alternative being.....you know! :-]