Reply #26 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I had the 81.98 drivers installed. Rolled back to 77.77 and so far everything is working fine. An hour and a half without crahses or anything wierd happening with the scrollbars, etc. Thank you, thank you, thank you, yrag and Adam.

It's good to know a fix will be up soon for the slow starting of SKS. It;s not an issue now that it stays working.

There is still some odd painting of the active and inactive non-per pixel window frames (every skin). They don't change from acitve to inactive until a window passes over them.

Fingers crossed there is no more issues. I'll probably be running SKS all day so I will surely post if there are any issues.
Reply #27 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ah, I'm using 77.77 - explains why mine works without crashing  
Star Control: Origins
Reply #28 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I installed the 77.77 drivers this morning (was using 77.72).
I'll give this a go today .. hope it works!
Reply #29 from WinCustomize Forums Top
SKS is still crashing. It was working good for awhile and then it started to act up again. No problems with the scrollbars and such at least. Ugggh.
Reply #30 from WinCustomize Forums Top
NT: You a gamer?
Reply #32 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Good......try these: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1292 They fix the aforementioned problems, unfortunately, they play havoc with some games. Use a driver cleaner when you're doing these installs/un-installs. If you don't have it or need some guidance, let me know.
Reply #33 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thanks gary...for the millionth time. I got those drivers installed now. I will give it a good test to see what happens.

This video card has never worked right. I cannot get my dual monitor setup to have matching monitors. The colors are off between them and it is going to put me in the hospital. I should just breakdown and get a new one. Dual DVI port cards are hard to find. Next time I won't cheap out.
Reply #34 from WinCustomize Forums Top
......so if we blow up your card, I'll be doing you a favor....


You are using a DVI adapter...yes?
Reply #35 from WinCustomize Forums Top
No, should I be? My current card has dual DVI ports and my conversation with PNY support , they blamed the monitors. It isn't the monitors. I returned 2 monitors already and they all do the same thing.
Reply #36 from WinCustomize Forums Top
conversation with PNY support , they blamed the monitors


...why doesn't that surprise me.........

What monitors and what flavor graphic card?
Reply #37 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Nvidia GEForce 6600GT by PNY

2 HP F1903 (LCD) monitors.
HP Pavilion 753n PC
Xp home SP2.

Thanks for giving it some thought. Wanna buy a cheap card? I got 2, the other ( ATI radeon ???) was how I found out I needed dual DVI ports. D'oh.
Reply #38 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I certainly don't see any problem with the monitors (contrast/resolution/response are all within acceptable range). That's the good news....the bad is that graphic card just doesn't have enough juice, although it's shortcomings should be barely perceivable. You can try two things: switch the plugs. If you get the same result on the other monitor, it's your card. Another is to unplug the secondary and use the monitor analog connection and the DVI to ANG adapter that came with the card and see if it corrects the color disparity.
Reply #39 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Since Jafo hasn't blown anything up today.........yet......I have extra time to ponder this. If I remember correctly, PNY puts two DVI to VGA adapters in their packages....switch them both to VGA (analog) and see what you get. With AGP you're not losing much with the lack of digital.
Reply #40 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I never even thought to try that. I do have the 2 adaptors but it might take some carpentry to reroute the wires. I will give it a try first thing in the morning. I really appreciate it. Something tells me I will be at the store at 9:00 getting a new card. A Radeon X1800XT is way overkill but I am stupid like that.

BTW..SKS crashed twice in the first half hour but has held for about 45 minutes now.
Reply #41 from WinCustomize Forums Top
...if overkill is stupid, then I'm braindead....

Buy two of them........
Reply #42 from WinCustomize Forums Top
BTW..SKS crashed twice in the first half hour but has held for about 45 minutes now.


I'm sure we're on the right track with this....try something; when you're using SKS (and only SKS) disable Hardware Acceleration in Display Properties. Let's see what that does. On another note...you do have the onboard graphics disabled, correct?
Reply #43 from WinCustomize Forums Top
On another note...you do have the onboard graphics disabled, correct?


I am pretty sure I do. How would I check to be certain?

Why your at it...how does one go about turning off Hardware acceleration? I know I have seen it, just can't find it now.

thanks again.
Reply #44 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Boot into bios and look for Onboard entries (Sound, Graphic, Sata, etc); Disable Onboard Graphics. If it doesn't show in Device Manager, then chances are it's already disabled.

Control Panel/ Display/ Settings/ Advanced/ Troubleshoot/ slider to left, apply
Reply #45 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thanks Gary. I will surely let you know how things go. Onboard graphics are off.
Reply #46 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I am posting this after running some tests trying to find out if I have a vid card issue or not.
yrag recommended I send this to Adam to see if anything jumps out. I will email this as well.

Basically, I ran Skinstudio under different circumstances and in the end, allowing Skinstudio to be skinned is a big no-no. However I did run into problems before with skinstudio excluded. During this run of testing, I didn't experience any problems.

This is what I have come up with...I hope it makes sense. I was up late and things get fuzzy ...late.

Running Skinstudio (1 skin) with no windowblinds running (XP default),
skinstudio and paint shop pro excluded from being skinned.
No issues at all. Worked for over an hour solid.
SKS memory usage- 1524 k
handles-7640
Physical memory available- 2237480 k
total Physical memory- 523760 k

Running Skinstudio (1 skin), running windowblinds (my own skin) ,
SKS and PSP excluded from being skinned.
Worked fine for over an hour (my shift key just went down CRAP! pardon the lack of caps)
SKS memory usage- ??? k
handles-7146
Physical memory available- 240000 k
total Physical memory- 523760 k

Now my notes get confusing. (Shift key is back)
Basically everything worked fine until I allowed SKS to be skinned. In about 4 hours I had no program crashes.
Until..
SKS running (1 skin), windowblinds running (my skin) , sks skinned, PSP skinned.
At start up
Handles- 7321
Available physical memory- 145800 k
Total memory- 523760 k
SKS memory usage- 59000 k climbing to 75000 k rapidly.
After approx 45 minutes..
Program crash.
Handles- 7475
Available memory- 43092 k
Total memory- 523670k
SKS Memory usage- 85000 k

Close skinstudio... Available memory instantly jumps to 200000k
Restart SKS..
10 minutes before program crashes
Available physical memory- 71400k
SKS memory usage -88000k
Cache jumps to- 258000k
Close SKS and available jumps to 268000 k...cache jumps to 112000k
Restart...10 minutes crash again.
Available memory- 65000k
Program keeps crashing every 10 minutes or so..

Sleeeeppppp.....
.....wake

For about an hour this morning everything worked fine. SkS being skinned and all.
Then the program crashed. After 2 or 3 program restarts and crashes *BOOM*..
there go my scrollbars, taskbar, etc. Just like in the screnshot shown at WC.
This is the first time it has happened since I rolled back to the 77.77 drivers.
I have been using SKS alot too. I really thought we had that problem nailed down.
Getting things back to normal wasn't so easy this time.
The weird thing was I was I could see the preview windows with scroll bars in
windowblinds configuration for my skins but not the aura skin. Normally it is the other way around.
I can see the Aura scrollbars but not mine. After some changing to XP default and reloading my skin,
and back and forth a couple of times everything went back to normal. My quick launch icons,
and system tray kept loading with large icons. This was a first. Everything is normal now.
I am going to uninstall and reinstall all the software that could be related and do some more of something. LOL

to be conitinued...
Reply #47 from WinCustomize Forums Top
While just closing down Skinstudio I got the following messages. This has happened a couple of times.


Access violation at address 004040B2 in module SknStdio.exe. Read of address 3D746E75

I click it off and The following message comes up

Control " has no parent window.

I click that off and I got Access violation at address 00488A04 in module SknStdio.exe. read of address 00000180

Then it closes.
Hope it tells you something.
Reply #48 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I believe the problems has been taken care of. There should be a new version of SkinStudio on SDC tomorrow. Please mail me at: adam AT stardock DOT com if you still have the problems with the new version.
Reply #50 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Cool!!! Great news Adam!!