Computer Problem

[Korgeta]

After finishing work I visited a friend who asked me for help regarding his laptop. I know a bit about getting the right software or being able to take apart, repair and rebuild. However I didn't touch his laptop because his problem was somewhat unusual.

Every time he turned on his laptop, everything (windows logo, movement of cursor, file icons) was upside down and in reverse order. If I move the cursor left it went right and down when I moved it up.
Despite turning the computer off and back on again, it’s still showing everything upside down and the cursor moving in a opposite way.

It's something i never came across before, I haven't touched his laptop before and not making any attempts now. So he will have to take it to repairs, however am curious as to what would have caused this?

[Dominus Atheos]

The settings in the graphics card program got changed, either accidentally or (more likely) as a prank. Just have him right click on his desktop and click the entry for whatever GFX brand he has, then there should be an option for orientation or rotate display. Change that back to landscape or 0 degrees.

[Starglider]

On laptops with ATI graphics cards, open Catalyst Control Center (right click on desktop -> personalise -> display settings -> advanced), go to displays manager, go to active display, set rotation to zero. If it is currently zero (for some bizarre reason) then set it to 180 degrees ('inverted landscape'). There's a similar setting on the Nvidia control panel, although I don't have one handy to check where.

[Dave]

I believe on Nvidia systems (or perhaps it's a Windows feature) there's a keystroke combo that changes screen orientation -- [Ctrl] [Alt] [Directional Arrow] may be a quick fix (or dirty prank at a later date.)

I'm in a Linux environment right now, so I can't test it just now.

[Korgeta]

Thanks guys, the suggestion worked (it was proarbly as you said Dominus that it was a prank as he does share the laptop for university purposes) It would have been an expensive one given a fee has to be paid by the likes OF PC world who take in laptops for repairs. I phoned him the details and it worked, so no money had to be spent for a pickup and checkup routine. Thanks again.

[Enigma]

Thanks guys, the suggestion worked (it was proarbly as you said Dominus that it was a prank as he does share the laptop for university purposes) It would have been an expensive one given a fee has to be paid by the likes OF PC world who take in laptops for repairs. I phoned him the details and it worked, so no money had to be spent for a pickup and checkup routine. Thanks again.

That reminded me of when I used to work at a high tech company as an assembler for fiber optic components. The computer we used was to scan every component we assembled into the computer's database. For shits and giggles I made a screenshot of the desktop and made it as the wallpaper and then I put all of the icons at the other end of the screen. The less computer savy people would think that the computer was frozen since they'd be clicking the wallpaper and not on the actual icon. I did this shortly before my shift ended and no-one knew of this and I found out that they had to hire some technician to take a look at it. Probably cost them a couple of hundred dollars.

[Dominus Atheos]

Thanks guys, the suggestion worked (it was proarbly as you said Dominus that it was a prank as he does share the laptop for university purposes) It would have been an expensive one given a fee has to be paid by the likes OF PC world who take in laptops for repairs. I phoned him the details and it worked, so no money had to be spent for a pickup and checkup routine. Thanks again.

That reminded me of when I used to work at a high tech company as an assembler for fiber optic components. The computer we used was to scan every component we assembled into the computer's database. For shits and giggles I made a screenshot of the desktop and made it as the wallpaper and then I put all of the icons at the other end of the screen. The less computer savy people would think that the computer was frozen since they'd be clicking the wallpaper and not on the actual icon. I did this shortly before my shift ended and no-one knew of this and I found out that they had to hire some technician to take a look at it. Probably cost them a couple of hundred dollars.

A meaner way of pulling that prank is to lock the computer (winkey + L) and then moving the dialog box off screen (only works on XP). That way there are no icons, taskbar, or start menu besides the desktop background and ctrl-alt-del does nothing.

For those wondering why people would do that or rotate people's screen, at my old work it was a rule that you had to lock your workstation whenever you weren't in front of it. It was actually an instantly fireable offense to not do it, so the supervisors actually encouraged doing things like that if we noticed a coworker's computer was unlocked since it was a good way to teach them. I was told by my supervisor that in the old days of CRT monitors they would rotate the screen 180 degrees, then flip the entire monitor over so the stand was on the top but everything on the screen was still oriented the right way. It apparently made some people freak out when they saw it.

[Vendetta]

For those wondering why people would do that or rotate people's screen, at my old work it was a rule that you had to lock your workstation whenever you weren't in front of it. It was actually an instantly fireable offense to not do it, so the supervisors actually encouraged doing things like that if we noticed a coworker's computer was unlocked since it was a good way to teach them. I was told by my supervisor that in the old days of CRT monitors they would rotate the screen 180 degrees, then flip the entire monitor over so the stand was on the top but everything on the screen was still oriented the right way. It apparently made some people freak out when they saw it.

Where I work if you don't lock your screen you'll probably come back to have a hundred new notepad documents on your desktop that all say something like "I Love Bunnies".