Hello Expert(s),
I am trying this as a last resort as I did not wish to spend any more money. Have already paid Microsoft support who have been persistent in their attempts to help but so far have not been able to since contacting them about six weeks ago.
Can I begin by saying I found it very difficult to navigate this site to the point of actually posting this query. I am here now so I guess it doesn't matter.
I have a challenging problem which appears to be a similar one to one already posted. I subscribed in the hope of actually seeing a solution. Unfortunately, the experts have suggested solutions which I have already tried but no success. The problem was "Word crashes Windows XP". I have also tried the support forums in Microsoft without success. No-one can give me an answer short of a complete hardware rebuild.
Here's the history:
I have built an upgraded computer with the following components. This was a first attempt so I thought about hardware reseating etc. - no problems there.
ASUS K8VSE Deluxe MOBO
512 Mb DDR400 Ram
AMD 3000+ CPU
Seagate 160 Gb SATA HDD
Seagate 80 Gb IDE HDD
GeCube 9600XT VIVO Graphics
Winfast TV 2000 Expert Tuner Card
LG DVD-RAM
LG DVD-ROM
Windows XP Pro SP1 Original Purchased Disk.
Office Pro 2003 Original Disk
Windows XP SP2 (from an original disk - not downloaded)
Free Zonealarm Firewall (latest version)
Latest NOD32 AV program
Latest BIOS and drivers downloaded with AV switched OFF.
I am into video editing and 3D gaming hence the moderate specs.
I boot from the SATA (which has ten partitions) and use the IDE drive as a backup. The Windows partition size is 8Gb.
To prevent posting solutions I have already tried, I will detail what my system can and can't do as well as what steps I have already done without success. I am a fairly competent with computers and can modify the registry with success.
The system will:
Run all Office applications I use frequently (I am a secondary teacher) - Excel, Publisher and Powerpoint. It will run them without crashing everyday - all the time.
Run all video editing software, photo-editing software everyday - all the time.
Run all 3D games and childrens games everyday - all the time.
Run all peripherals (scanner, removable drives, cameras, printer) with relevant software everyday - all the time.
Surf the internet (with a broadband connection) everyday - all the time.
Capture TV programs to HDD using the TV tuner, every.......
Get the picture?
The system will NOT:
successfully run Word 2003 for more than 15 minutes. The problem is that each time I use Word, it will cause the screen to go black from between 0 to 15 minutes use. It randomly crashes the screen from immediately opening a pre-existing document to typing a new document randomly up to around 15 mintues into using Word. Turning the screen on and off results in a grid pattern suggesting the screen is not receiving a signal from the computer. I must reboot to use the computer, resulting in disk checking etc - pain in the proverbial.... The problem has occurred since using the new computer.
In short, the computer works perfectly for all other applications except Word. This has been extremely frustrating given the amount of documents our family produces.
The monitor I use was from an older P3 computer which ran Office 2003 just fine...perhaps I should go back there...
I have tried:
1) Reformatting both Drives and reinstalling everything, downloading updates (inculding latest Word 2003 SP1 update) with and without AV turned off.
2) Running OS from both drives
3) Running applications with and without installing SP2 (from both drives).
4) Reseating Hardware.
5) Repairing Office 2003
6) Completely uninstalling Office (have software that will supposedly do this) and reinstalling Office applications with advanced options - moving to other drives etc (with appropriate registry changes - "Old office" etc)
7) Normal.dot template changes in Word
8) Changing default printers.
9) Checking Word in safe mode - this is interesting, while the screen doesn't go black - other gliches occur such as:
- screen freezes (loss of keyboard and mouse functions)
- blue "ghosting" of the black font - a faded blue copy of each letter appears behind the black font. At times the black
font will stop typing and the blue font will start. During this time, if I scroll the screen, the blue font moves behind the
black while the black remains stationary. It then reverts to the black font, pushing the blue font ahead of the black.
- When scrolling, the edge of the page starts to go "chunky" and blue. Other Office applications work fine in safe
mode.
10) Using my previous versions of Windows XP and Office XP (original disks).
All these permutations have taken considerable time and effort, as you can imagine. I repeat, none of them have been successful.
Hope anyone can help,
blessings,
Paul
