Today I discovered that when I choose "Log Off" or "Shut Down" in the
start menu, the screen under the pop-up dialog behaves strangely.
Usually it just fades into black-n-white, but now it does more:
http://home.earthlink.net/~iworms/img/screen1.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~iworms/img/screen2.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~iworms/img/screen3.jpg

The first two are when the desktop is shown; the third one is with a
window maximized.

I'm sure the problem started no more than 3 days ago. I can only think
of 2 new softwares added: Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, and Apple's
free QuickTime 6.5. I have HP Pavilion 750n, WinXP Pro, 512MB memory,
80GB IBM Hard Drive, 1.6Ghz P4 CPU.

This copy of XP pro is installed on my additional hard drive that I
purchased myself. The same problem also occured and still exists on
the original hard drive with XP Home Edition. For the Home Edition, it
occured after I had installed ZoneAlarm Pro 4; but nothing happened to
XP Pro after ZoneAlarm was installed. I believe the problem also
happened to my IBM laptop(XP Pro) once(don't remember very well), but
the laptop has had no symptom since last reinstallation.

Although I see no immediate harm associated with this weird problem,
it is very annoying, especially with the fact that it has happened
before! Please help me! I really appreciate it.

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Request for Question Clarification by joseleon-ga on 25 Dec 2003 03:12 PST

Hello, iworms:
  Probably this has something to do with the video driver/DirectX
updates after install Need For Speed. Can you update your video
drivers? Which video card you have?

Regards.

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Clarification of Question by iworms-ga on 25 Dec 2003 10:19 PST

My video card is 32MB nVidia TNT2 M64. I don't know whether Need For
Speed updated my driver/DirectX or not. I will uninstall NFS and try
to roll back the video driver and let you know what the result is.

Please also note that the screen you see is stationary: nothing is
moving. It just becomes that way as soon as the screen turns gray and
stays this way. That's why I doubt it's the video card's problem.
Usually video card problems involve flickering or things moving.

Also, I tried changing the windows color scheme, and when windows
tells me to wait and the screen turns gray temporarily, this
phenomenon also happens.