19 July 2012 Thursday

Windows flickering, especially task manager

Noticed last night when I took the laptop off the dock and turned it on…
I’ve been using it on the dock, installing everything (after a new harddrive) and everything working beautifully.. But then when it’s not connected to the dock (what the heck??) it was having lots of of trouble loading up windows all the way, and then when I removed a bunch of programs from startup, then it loaded better but still getting flickering of windows (not the screen itself); taskbar flickers periodically or when the mouse hovers over another window, and especially flickers and has issue when trying to view the Windows Task Manager: the info bar at the bottom of Windows Task Manager that usually consistently shows, e.g.: “Processes: 108 CPU Usage: 16% Physical Memory: 41%” is blank and it and other parts of the Task Manager flicker when mouse cursor is moved about.

When the machine is docked, NO ISSUE. …
So far, internet searches are turning up nothing.
It has to be software but I haven’t narrowed down what could be causing this, and I’m bewildered as to why the dock makes any difference at all..it should really be causing more problems when hooked up to dock because then it has to contend with external monitors, etc.. I’ve left extra harddrives disconnected for all of this (both docked and undocked) so that’s a nonissue.

This is in Windows 7 running on a Lenovo W520 — usually a beautifully functioning machine and I love it. Please don’t give me another occasion (ever again) have to consult their customer service because I have nothing but horror stories about their customer service as a whole (some nice individuals, but that doesn’t solve problems) though I *love* the machines.
But this is a software issue that should be cleanly solvable — if only I can find a toehold of advise to pursue…

…

Now even connected to dock I’m experiencing same issues. trying to quickly shut down startup apps before they fully startup… this has succeeded twice. Ran a system restore back to a couple days ago but that did not solve the problem.

…

I restored Nvidia factory settings. I think what it came down to though was Pitaschio. A little app I cannot live without. Trying extensive Windows Compatibility Troubleshooting was unfruitful, then remembered past experience with some apps and attempted this Fix which seems to have solved it entirely:
Picked up the whole Pitaschio folder (it’s not an app that requires installation) and moved it from where it was in C:\Program Files\pita226
and dropped it into C:\Program Files (x86)\pita226

Win, I hope. Will complain further if issues reemerge.

The thing that has really thrown me is that it was working fine all this while; Pitaschio was doing great. Why did it suddenly start giving problems, seemingly coinciding with me not using the laptop on its dock?