Question for the computer savvy

[Retropin]

For those of you who can navigate your way round a computer rather than want to punch the thing out, i need a little help.

What happened was that my wife and i went away for 10 days and left 3 teenage kids here supervised by an adult.
Now the kids swear that they never even touched my computer ( after some persistence i find that one logged on then off... never went anywhere.. !! )

Now despite absolutely nothing being downloaded or even browsed on my comp.. upon my return i find that things arent quite the same as when i went away.
Biggest problem is that Ebay no longer displays correctly... there are no spacings between all the listings and if i go into an auction page i cant open up any pics.. also a lot of the text has little squares in the wordings inbetween the letters.
Also, this website ( auspinball) no longer fits on my comp screen... it downloads OK, then sort of jumps and i have to scroll over to the right to see everything.

Im figuring some sort of setting is out here... im no good with computers i find them extremely irritating to say the least,
But what i have done is redownlaoded IE8 and also JAVA script... ( not sure what that is but the Javas seem to have been OK)... none of this makes any difference.

Any suggestions????

 Thanks guys 

[63wizz]

I would probably do a restore to a previous date and see if that helps.

Start, all programs, accessories, system tools, system restore.

Ian

[Retropin]

I would probably do a restore to a previous date and see if that helps.

Start, all programs, accessories, system tools, system restore.

Ian

Done that... no good

[Geoffh]

Maybe the monitor/display driver has corrupted. Check the display settings for these to and try getting new drivers form the net.

maybe not the problem but worth a try

Good luck Gav

[dj10555]

Gavin,
is it only IE8 which looks different? Does word, excel, etc look alright? If so, they may have just zoomed in/out of the browser. You can try pressing ctrl & + together or ctrl &- to zoom in/out.

Could also be what Geoff mentioned and that the display resolution has been changed. If you have a decent monitor then you normally want this setting on the highest setting.

regards Derek

[MartyJ]

Gavin,
is it only IE8 which looks different? Does word, excel, etc look alright? If so, they may have just zoomed in/out of the browser. You can try pressing ctrl & + together or ctrl &- to zoom in/out.

Could also be what Geoff mentioned and that the display resolution has been changed. If you have a decent monitor then you normally want this setting on the highest setting.

regards Derek

+1

Same goes for if you hold CTRL and move the mouse centre wheel backwards / forwards does same thing.  Quite easy to do by mistake.

[Retropin]

Gavin,
is it only IE8 which looks different? Does word, excel, etc look alright? If so, they may have just zoomed in/out of the browser. You can try pressing ctrl & + together or ctrl &- to zoom in/out.

Could also be what Geoff mentioned and that the display resolution has been changed. If you have a decent monitor then you normally want this setting on the highest setting.

regards Derek

+1

Same goes for if you hold CTRL and move the mouse centre wheel backwards / forwards does same thing.  Quite easy to do by mistake.

mmmmm - neat trick! Unfortunately it didnt work either.
With Auspinball not displaying correctly, its mainly on the UNREAD POSTS or HOME page... once clicked into a thread its all Ok as far as i can see.
Ebay though is no good at all... no spacings inbetween listings... cant look at pics etc.
With the text.. it displays like this ( copied and pasted)


Pinba​ll Spare Parts Austr​alia (134)
Bumpe​r Actio​n Amuse​ments (109)
unplu​rdy (40)
tipue​l88 (34)
See all matching eBay Stores

[Caveoftreasures]

Gav, i had a very similar thing happen recently and Andrew (Beaky) did a full system restore for me and it fixed it.
I reckon do a defrag, run a full system scan/virus checker, then redo the full system restore. If you set the date correctly for a system restore, I cant see why it wont fix it. As the other guys said, check the monitor settings, but the restore is probably the only way.

If after that, it still aint working, we will be up your way during the week since we are local and are happy to come past, say hello and have Andy (who is extremely A+ at fixing all things computer) to fix it for you. The only other alternative, is to call out a computer expert from the yellow pages, etc but they charge like wounded bulls.

Andys help is free ofcourse and it shld be very straight forward for him to fix, given 20 or 30 minutes tops probably. Give us a yell if ya need a hand.   

[MartyJ]

What version of Windows are you running Gav?  XP, Vista or Win7?  Also what version of browser are you running?

Can you just confirm its only in your web browser which everything is screwed up?

If its IE, go into TOOLS and make sure COMPATIBILITY VIEW does not have a check next to it.

Next, go into TOOLS and INTERNET OPTIONS.

Select FONTS.

Make sure the drop down box at the top has LATIN BASED selected (should be shown)

Make sure the window WEBPAGE FONT: has Time New Roman and PLAIN TEXT FONT: Courier New

If all the above is correct and same, then as a last ditched effort, go to TOOLS and INTERNET OPTIONS.  Select ADVANCED tab.

Down the bottom is a button RESET.  This will do a 'factory' reset on your IE options.  Worth a try.

Make sure for virus software is up to date and to a full scan.

If its happening all over windows (ie not just internet browsing) we'll go to plan B.

[ajlaird]

Try Firefox to see if you have the same issue.

[Retropin]

What version of Windows are you running Gav?  XP, Vista or Win7?  Also what version of browser are you running?

Can you just confirm its only in your web browser which everything is screwed up?

If its IE, go into TOOLS and make sure COMPATIBILITY VIEW does not have a check next to it.

Next, go into TOOLS and INTERNET OPTIONS.

Select FONTS.

Make sure the drop down box at the top has LATIN BASED selected (should be shown)

Make sure the window WEBPAGE FONT: has Time New Roman and PLAIN TEXT FONT: Courier New

If all the above is correct and same, then as a last ditched effort, go to TOOLS and INTERNET OPTIONS.  Select ADVANCED tab.

Down the bottom is a button RESET.  This will do a 'factory' reset on your IE options.  Worth a try.

Make sure for virus software is up to date and to a full scan.

If its happening all over windows (ie not just internet browsing) we'll go to plan B.

First up - thanks everyone.
 I cant stand computers but seem to spend a lot of time on them!

Marty J - i did all that you suggested..... when i restore factory settings i can see all the ticks changing in the boxes..... go to a web page and all good then it goes cranky again after about 5 secs.

Go back to restore factory settings, click restore and all the ticks change in boxes again.

I did this approx 3 times and now Ebay listing page looks good, but my Ebay page is all cranky.. still cant open up any pics on any listings.

Ran anti virus and all good and also all updated.

Odd thing is that most other web sites appear OK... just Ebay now.
Auspinball looks good so far

[MartyJ]

Ok

Delete cookies and temp Internet files

[Retropin]

Ok

Delete cookies and temp Internet files

....Well that seems to work.... sort of...

I did actually manage to browse Ebay and have a look at some pics on a listing. Problem is that if i then go to another listing and try to browse the pictures i cant until ive deleted Temp Internet Files again and refreshed the page.

Its a way round the problem, but it means i have to relog back into here

[Strangeways]

Try Firefox to see if you have the same issue.

+1 I never use IE but I hear IE 9 is quite good.

[Marty Machine]

Nasty one indeed....

Go back to ebay in your IE browser, and press the F5 key to make it refresh/redownload the site....this usually fixes those kind of nasties....
I HIGHLY recommend any browser OTHER than Micro$oft IE, it's problematic and non-conforming to most web standards these days and easily corruptable as you've seen.

A quick install of FIREFOX, OPERA, SAFARI or whatever will get you out of trouble and lock out FAR MORE virus/malicious online attacks than what Micro$oft will ever ever ever do.....
 
I would have initially said it was a screen size issue, but from what i've read everything looks to be behaving now??? just ebay seems to still be outta whack....??

Good luck.
Marty.