Bizarre video card crash...

[Fumesucker]

I have a WinXP system that I ended up putting a very old Velocity 128 PCI video card into because the "good" PCI-E video card let out the magic smoke and I needed to get the computer working again.

The Velocity 128 worked OK for a while but now I'm getting the strangest crash I've ever seen. Everything on the entire desktop is monochrome *except* for the icons, which appear in color.

If I delete the video card driver from Hardware Manager and reboot the computer will boot back up in normal color and stay that way until the next time it is shut down, at which point the monochrome desktop will come back with color icons.

I'm not looking for advice, just thought I would like to share a bit of a strange story. I'll be changing the video card out for a far more modern one soon.

[Babel_17]

1. Sounds like Windows is loading drivers

that don't go into effect until you reboot. The ones you are booting with are possibly generic.

It's also possible Windows is loading the wrong drivers and/or they have issues with XP.

[Fumesucker]

2. It's not really a big issue since I leave my computer on 24/7

But seeing a completely monochrome screen with the icons in color is strange.

Are icons handled differently in hardware than everything else on the desktop?

That seems to me to be the only reasonable explanation for this behavior.

[Babel_17]

3. Yes

There is an icon cache and it can get corrupted. IIRC it is safe to delete. Windows just makes a fresh one after rebooting.