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Firefox starts up ii a crashed pixel state where nothing is readable and everything is indistinguishable.

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by The_Hat

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When Firefox opens, instead of seeing my home page where everything is normal & readable Firefox opens with a page where everything is indistinguishable and all the pixels look like an abstract painting. I'm running Firefox 15.0.1. Firefox crashed and when I restarted it, this is what I'm seeing. I've even tried uninstalling and going back as far as Firefox 10 but it makes no difference what version I'm running because the results are the same. My operating system is Windows 7 Professional w/SP1

When Firefox opens, instead of seeing my home page where everything is normal & readable Firefox opens with a page where everything is indistinguishable and all the pixels look like an abstract painting. I'm running Firefox 15.0.1. Firefox crashed and when I restarted it, this is what I'm seeing. I've even tried uninstalling and going back as far as Firefox 10 but it makes no difference what version I'm running because the results are the same. My operating system is Windows 7 Professional w/SP1

Chosen solution

I apologize for taking so long to answer your post but I had other matters that needed attention for a day. What I did before I received your response was restored my computer back to a point in September which was shortly after the clean install of Windows 7 Professional. At that point both Firefox 15.0.1 and IE9 were working fine. After doing the system restore when I accessed Firefox it's was working with no problems. Next I updated my HIS Radeon HD4650 AGP video card for the latest drivers and that' when everything went haywire. It looks like there is an issue between the HIS Radeon HD4650 latest AGP video card drivers and the Via Technologies VIA P4PB400-FL which as I mentioned earlier is and older product which does not have hardware acceleration. I say it's an issue with the Via motherboard because the machine I'm using to write the question has an ASUS motherboard with the same AGP video card and latest drivers and I do not have any issues with any browsers especially Firefox.

After determining the possibility of the stated video card/motherboard issue. I reverted back to a earlier video card driver which was published in 2009. Since then Firefox has been working (not so on IE9) so I consider the Firefox issue resolved.

I want to thank you for taking the time to help me resolve my issue and look forward to maybe being of help to others.

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All Replies (4)

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Try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.

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Thanks for the reply cor-el. I'm using an older motherboard on my machine that does not have hardware acceleration. Since I've only upgraded to Windows 7 from XP I'm not sure what affects what. I was wondering if Aero has anything to do with the problem however I don't know enough about Windows 7 to do anything about it. The surprising thing is I have 2 machines of the same vintage both having the same Video cards however the motherboards are different. Firefox works fine on the machine with the ASUS motherboard but not on the machine with the VIA Technologies motherboard. Neither have hardware acceleration.

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Can you attach a screenshot?

Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot.

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Chosen Solution

I apologize for taking so long to answer your post but I had other matters that needed attention for a day. What I did before I received your response was restored my computer back to a point in September which was shortly after the clean install of Windows 7 Professional. At that point both Firefox 15.0.1 and IE9 were working fine. After doing the system restore when I accessed Firefox it's was working with no problems. Next I updated my HIS Radeon HD4650 AGP video card for the latest drivers and that' when everything went haywire. It looks like there is an issue between the HIS Radeon HD4650 latest AGP video card drivers and the Via Technologies VIA P4PB400-FL which as I mentioned earlier is and older product which does not have hardware acceleration. I say it's an issue with the Via motherboard because the machine I'm using to write the question has an ASUS motherboard with the same AGP video card and latest drivers and I do not have any issues with any browsers especially Firefox.

After determining the possibility of the stated video card/motherboard issue. I reverted back to a earlier video card driver which was published in 2009. Since then Firefox has been working (not so on IE9) so I consider the Firefox issue resolved.

I want to thank you for taking the time to help me resolve my issue and look forward to maybe being of help to others.