ok this is what my desktop looks like

(took pic down, more at bottom)

i have a geforce4 ti4200 128 mb, i installed the newest drivers, directx 9b.

i tried everything to fix this, it didnt used to do it, i lowered refresh rate, unistalled drivers, and i went to the hardware acceleration tab, and when i set it down a notch it fixes all this, but then i cant play most games... and also its not like this on the other users desktops.

edit:i can set a backround, but i didnt right now, the color seems to vanish on certain icons (like zip files are grey) i have windows xp home, if you need more info just tell me

i dont see any video card overworked overheated or drivers problem here at all.

what i see is the  shortcut arrow overlay area is a black square instead of an overlay, and color bit quantities missing off the icons.

as if , the icons are set for 256 colors, and the shortcut overlay is tweaked wrong.

is this the problem were supposed to see? 

to prove that its not the video cards icon rendering, you could turn down the Video performance slider (where is that thing in xp)? the first notch down on the video performance slider is supposed to put Mousey Cursers into software , and out of the video card hardware rendering, the second notch down takes more stuff out of hardware and into software.  putting the slider all the way down, stops all video card hardware rendering of all of that stuff, and puts it all in "software" or being done in the os then sent to the video card. 

if you could find that slider, you could test if it was a driver/video card issue, Vrses a setting in the registry.

because you have a screenshot (not a digicam pic) of the screen, it proves that it is NOT a video monitor connection issue (video monitors rgb&sync not hooked up right).

check the display settings for the # of colors the whole thing is running at, find a tweak for # of colors that the icons run at, reset the shortcut arrow , back to default.

wonder if that info coudl have been stored in a THEME, the themes have much and much info in them, that sets stuff even to the registry. if you used some goth theme for somone who doesnt know what 32 bit color is ???

im running at 32 bit colors on 1024X768

now, when i set my refresh rate to anything above 70 hz, i get all these wierd problems

but when i set my resolution to 800x600 (the lowest) and 16 bit colors (lowest) the colors also go funky. even when i set them back they stay that way,

i have a feeling my video card is the problem cause my other 1 went out, so i got another 1 of the same type from the manufacturer, and with that card is when i started having problems.

if you blew the other one, and this one is causing you problems when its pushed, mabey you should look in your bios.   some older bioses had the capacity to run the AGP at 89 instead of 66 (or something)  some agp cards would work at that (for a while :-)  .  it is the FSB divider for the agp.  it should be set at a lower fraction of the total fsb. like 1/2 insted of 2/3,  or 66 instead of 89. when your running a 133 fsb    (2/3rds works the agp at 66 when running a 100fsb so that setting is for when running the whole computer at 100fsb)

then turn off fast writes, and some of them other goofey video card speedup things in the bios, some of them can completly clear up weird issues, and they dont do much for speed anyways.

other possibilities: reducing the agp 2x 4x 8x speeds down, for testing.

edited math correction

I take it this 'just started' otherwise I'm thinkin' PG it could be a monitor limitation.  Perhaps a 'driver roll-back' might be in order.

What drivers did you use for the video card and if they were nVidia reference drivers, give the driver version?  What make/model is your monitor?

its a gateway ev700 monitor, geforce 4 ti4200 with AGP8x (thats the whole title of the card) with the 44.03 newest nvidia drivers, now if fixing the bios is in order, im gonna need a little (or alot) of help doing that kind of stuff

edit: can anybody find ev700 monitor drivers for xp?

Can't help but think it's a monitor issue. In Control Panel>Display Properties>Settings>Advanced>Monitor tell us what it says there -- is it a Gateway EV700 and what refresh rate settings are you showing (is the little box checked that talks about 'Hide Modes this Monitor Can't Display'?).

Do you have a manual that describes maximum refresh rates at varying resolutions?  Couldn't find anything after I looked here:http://www.support.gateway.com/s/MONITOR/7004012/7004012nv.shtml

Couldn't help notice that your max resolution for that monitor is 1280 X 1024 pixels.  I realize you're running at 1024 X 768 but it is possible that your monitor can't be driven at a vertical refresh rate of 85 (I know: you mentioned it above -- I just want to make sure!!)