Windows 10 Text jibberish in OS, some Software and browser

wadesmart · May 10, 2019

Two W10 computers, both fully updated.
Both pc are about one year old, both running 22" monitors.
Current browser on both is latest Chrome.
Both were running Comodo for firewall and av.

Starting a few months ago one of the pcs started having trouble
mostly on fb. At first the lower portion of the text was just shifted
sideways but later it was like every other letter was really messed up
and shifted and possibly missing. In either case moving your cursor
over the text would cause it format properly.

Now however this is happening on both computers across the OS,
some software, though not the same software on both computers,
but 100% of the time in the browser(s).

Steps taken thus far:
removed comodo after reading that some have had success with this -> no change.
removed chrome completely, reinstalled -> no change
installed two other browsers -> no change
uninstalled all updates back to when the first suspected event happened -> no change.
reset the font to default -> no change
changed settings to performance settings and removed all animations -> no change.
increased font size, thought that at 120% it helped but then found it did not, -> no change

Attached are three screenshots:
32 is from the font section under Chrome
24 is a email from Walmart for todays coupons.
08 is the list of emails in inbox. See how the cursor is over the subject display and still its messed up.

Ive found searches on screen pixelization, font jibberish, jumbled display - and while some seem to
have had results with the steps Ive taken above, on whole most have not.

Are there others suggestions on what to try?

Mike · May 10, 2019

wadesmart said:
Two W10 computers, both fully updated.
Both pc are about one year old, both running 22" monitors.
Current browser on both is latest Chrome.
Both were running Comodo for firewall and av.

Starting a few months ago one of the pcs started having trouble
mostly on fb. At first the lower portion of the text was just shifted
sideways but later it was like every other letter was really messed up
and shifted and possibly missing. In either case moving your cursor
over the text would cause it format properly.

Now however this is happening on both computers across the OS,
some software, though not the same software on both computers,
but 100% of the time in the browser(s).

Steps taken thus far:
removed comodo after reading that some have...

Mike · May 10, 2019

wadesmart said:
Two W10 computers, both fully updated.
Both pc are about one year old, both running 22" monitors.
Current browser on both is latest Chrome.
Both were running Comodo for firewall and av.

Starting a few months ago one of the pcs started having trouble
mostly on fb. At first the lower portion of the text was just shifted
sideways but later it was like every other letter was really messed up
and shifted and possibly missing. In either case moving your cursor
over the text would cause it format properly.

Now however this is happening on both computers across the OS,
some software, though not the same software on both computers,
but 100% of the time in the browser(s).

Steps taken thus far:
removed comodo after reading that some have had success with this -> no change.
removed chrome completely, reinstalled -> no change
installed two other browsers -> no change
uninstalled all updates back to when the first suspected event happened -> no change.
reset the font to default -> no change
changed settings to performance settings and removed all animations -> no change.
increased font size, thought that at 120% it helped but then found it did not, -> no change

Attached are three screenshots:
32 is from the font section under Chrome
24 is a email from Walmart for todays coupons.
08 is the list of emails in inbox. See how the cursor is over the subject display and still its messed up.

Ive found searches on screen pixelization, font jibberish, jumbled display - and while some seem to
have had results with the steps Ive taken above, on whole most have not.

Are there others suggestions on what to try?

Are these machines identical hardware? If not can you describe their make/model or if they are a custom built system.

Also, is their available hard disk space? This can sometimes cause corruption related to text on the screen, although I've never seen anything this bad unless it was some CRT monitor dying. If hard disk space is very low, try to permanently delete some files you don't need. (For some reason I surmise this may not be your issue)

Have you considered booting into safe mode? To boot into Safe Mode under Windows 10, hold down Shift when you click on the Power button under the Start Menu, and while simultaneously holding down shift on your keyboard, click on Restart.

You will see three options Continue, Troubleshoot, Restart Your PC. Choose Troubleshoot. Go to Advanced Options. Choose Startup Settings. Click Restart. You will see an option menu. Choose Option 4. "Enable Safe Mode". When the PC boots up, your screen resolution may be changed, and some unnecessary device drivers and startup software will be unloaded. Does the condition persist under this scenario?

If not run an elevated command prompt sfc /scannow to check for Windows system integrity violations

Neemobeer · May 10, 2019

You can try the following

Click the start button or press the Windows key
Type Powershell
Right Click "Windows Powershell" and select "Run As Administrator"
Copy and paste the following code and run it
Reboot

Code:

Stop-Service FontCache
Start-Sleep -Seconds 3
Remove-Item -Path "C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\FontCache\*FontCache*" -Force
Remove-Item -Path "C:\Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT"
Start-Service FontCache

wadesmart · May 10, 2019

Mike said:
Are these machines identical hardware? If not can you describe their make/model or if they are a custom built system.

Also, is their available hard disk space? This can sometimes cause corruption related to text on the screen, although I've never seen anything this bad unless it was some CRT monitor dying. If hard disk space is very low, try to permanently delete some files you don't need. (For some reason I surmise this may not be your issue)

Have you considered booting into safe mode? To boot into Safe Mode under Windows 10, hold down Shift when you click on the Power button under the Start Menu, and while simultaneously holding down shift on your keyboard, click on Restart.

You will see three options Continue, Troubleshoot, Restart Your PC. Choose Troubleshoot. Go to Advanced Options. Choose Startup Settings. Click Restart. You will see an option menu. Choose Option 4. "Enable Safe Mode". When the PC boots up, your screen resolution may be changed, and some unnecessary device drivers and startup software will be unloaded. Does the condition persist under this scenario?

If not run an elevated command prompt sfc /scannow to check for Windows system integrity violations

One is a Lenovo and one a HP. Both have Intel 7 series cpu, 2tb hd, Lenovo has I think 8gb ram and HP 12gb. Neither have more than I would say 1% above the base system of space used.

These are my inlaws computers and they only check their email and use fb to talk with their kids. Wasted systems for this use is my stance.

I did run scannow I have not run from Safe.. I will try that out when I go back over to help.

Thanks.

wadesmart · May 11, 2019

First - went Safe route and at first saw no issues.
Chrome did not start well. This is the same chrome that was just (re)installed
so no extra add-ons or anything. Had trouble loading some websites - fb being
one but did not see any problems ON the sites. But, in settings after looking several
times we started to see letters disappearing.

Went back to the normal boot - ran the FontCache instructions from above. The sleep -3 I changed to -5 after it just failed to run several times in a row.

On both computers after running the FontCache instructions I restarted and opened the browser. Email was fine as was fb. On one computer the fonts messed up again after about 10 min of use. I was sitting there the whole time and the user only scrolled through their feed. They did not start any games, click on any other pages, start any programs on the pc.

The first image you can see the settings screen on Chrome where it was starting to show issues.
The second image you can see the text on the fb menu bar go crazy.

After this happened I ran the FontCache instructions again, rebooted, opened Firefox and had no issues. Was there an hour and not a single problem. Opened Chrome (because they like Chrome) and seemed to have no further problems. We'll see if that holds.

Thanks for both the Safe mode and Font Cache posts.

Wade

Windows 10 Text jibberish in OS, some Software and browser

wadesmart

New Member

Attachments

Mike

Mike

Windows Forum Admin

Neemobeer

Cloud Security Engineer

wadesmart

New Member

wadesmart

New Member

Attachments

Similar threads