whipador

I am trying to help a friend out. His wife has a computer with major display issues. I don't know if it is a virus, a bad video card, corrupted OS, or even something with the BIOS. I am somewhat computer savvy but not an expert by any means.

System Info:
HP Pavilion a265c, Model # DF283A (2.8 GHz Intel processor)
512 MB physical memory
Windows XP Home Edition Version 5.1.2600, Service Pack 1, Build 2600
NVidia GeForce FX5200, driver version vga.sys.frambuf.dll, vga256.dll, vga64K.dll

Her description of the problem: This computer used to work just fine. About a year ago, she booted it and the display was garbled. She booted it in safe mode and it was okay. Recently, she began having problems even in safe mode.

My description: When booted normally, the display shows the icons (barely legible) but in about 1/4 the size of the safe mode icons. The bottom bar is not present. The display alternates between showing this garbled image and going into sleep mode (black screen). I have not had any problems booting in safe mode. However when I press F8 during boot to get into the Windows Advanced Options Menu, the menu displays some letters incorrectly. Examples:
Capital S is replaced by capital Q
Lowercase n is replaced by lowercase l
some but not all of lowercase s are replaced with lowercase q
etc.
When drivers are being loaded the same misspellings occur. However, when Windows boots in safe mode, everything appears fine.

Other information:
She appears to have two antivirus programs on the computer, Norton Antivirus and McAffe Security Center (not sure if this one is an antivirus or just a firewall/internet security). In safe mode, neither one will run. I know it is a big no-no to have two anti-virus programs on your computer.

Things I have tried:

Connected a different display. Same problem

Used system restore to go back to the first restore point. System restore did not go back month by month but year to year. In other words, when I pressed the arrow to go back from Feb 08, it went immediately to Feb 07, then it went to Dec 06 and wouldn't go farther. The earliest restore point seemed to indicate that it was when the OS was installed, however I was told that the computer was purchased before Dec 06. Going to the first restore point did not solve the problem.

With the theory that maybe she changed the display settings to something that is not compatible with the display system, I tried changing the settings by (in safe mode) clicking apply using the safe mode settings. I don't know if this would change the settings in regular mode but figured it was worth a try (since I don't know how to change settings in regular mode if I have no display).

Other thoughts I had:

it has a virus (but I can't run an antivirus to check this out)

the video board has gone bad (but I don't have another to try replacing this one)

video driver is corrupt -- not sure how to get a new video driver for this. Since her computer currently can not get on the internet, I would have to download it with mine.

OS is corrupt -- would this require that I wipe the hard disc and start fresh? If so, she never created recovery discs for this computer. Can I create them now from safe mode? Would this just copy the problem or is the recovery copy on the hard disc and likely to not be corrupt? Her husband has the identical computer -- could I have him create the recovery discs? Would they work on a different serial number computer?

Could the bios be corrupt (i.e. do the incorrect letters in the Advanced Options menu indicate a problem with the bios or would this be a function of XP?

She is okay with me doing a recovery as long as I copy her pictures to a CD.

What do you think I should do?