It sounds like your graphic card is broken, And/Or off.
Do you see any programs, that are gone, New programs, or just something that shouldn't be there?

For about three years ago, my Graphic card wen't burning, and my Hardisk too.
They couldn't recorver anything from the computer, assuming it was burned inside.

When you started the computer, were there any:
Bars on the screen, Was the Screen Flickering, Or just Glitching around?
The problem is massive, Seeing that Hardisk's are rarely hard to recorver.
It may just be the screen, Try to restart everything.

Computer Problems are hard to recorver', if it's the Hardisk.
Before everything of this happent, Did you have any computer problems, Such as:
BSOD's (Blue Screens of Death), YSOD's (Yellow Screens of Death), BSODK's (Black Screen of Death), Or RSOD's (Red Screens of Death.)?

The BSOD's are some of the worst a computer can get, Seeing that it might edit your Hardisk.
If you get the BSOD once, You can expect it coming again.
My computer have the BSOD, Seeing it's a normal Windows Problem.
Some of them are Harsh, some of them mild.
I am having the mild one, (BSOD -The mild one).

Hope you haven't any of these, Assuming they might edited your computer in that.
-Jack.

You have tried changing the colors from 256 to thousands or millions, right? This happens to me every time when the computer crashes while I'm playing Age of Empires II, because the game automatically changes around the display settings to suit its needs. A quick tweaking of the Display Properties usually fixes the problem. The screen resolution is always affected as well, so be sure to fix that as well. I'll post the steps later if you need them.

I really can't imagine that the battery dying while playing a game would seriously mess up your graphics card, so I'm sure this is the problem.

Last edited by Littlebrick (December 21, 2009 (03:00pm))

I assume you already know how to get to Display Properties (Right-Click > Properties), so once you're there, go to the tab on the far right (Settings). There are two areas in there called Screen Resolution and Color Quality. Under Color Quality, you should set it to 32-bit (I'm not sure if it goes up to 64-bit on 64-bit systems, but I assume it does, so go up to that if you have it), and under Screen Resolution, really all you have to do here is mess around with the slider until it looks nice. I've got mine at 1600x900, or something like that, but it all really depends on your tastes and what your monitor will support. After you do that, everything should be back the way it was.

Sounds like your resolution switched (Age of Empires is a pretty old game now, so it figures it would do that). Usually, it reverts when you quit the game, but your battery dying obviously confused that part of the programming.

The easy way of getting to display properties is to minimize everything, right click on the desktop and click 'properties' (this works on Vista, I've done it a couple of times), then, as Littlebrick said, go to the settings tab - you'll know you're on the right one because there will be a box with a number in it, which represents your screen (usually there's two, because of multiple monitor set-ups). Then crank the resolution back up to maximum, set the colours back to 'millions' (or whatever the highest setting is for colour) and hit 'apply'.

The more direct way of finding it is to go: Start Menu -> Control Panel and under the Display section (look for an icon of a monitor, usually it's in the top right of the window) there will be a link called 'change your screen resolution.' That takes you directly to the panel in question. I admit this whole thing will be a little tricky to do considering what 32 Colours looks like in Vista.

This scenario is pretty much the reason why one of the first things people should do when they get a computer is learn how to change the display settings. If anyone else reading this topic doesn't know how to, I suggest you find out, because you'd be surprised how easily this kind of thing can happen.

Rejecting reality since 2000.

UniBlog | DA

I don't have the "Properties" tab.
I tried control panel too, but it doesn't work.
It's quiet annoying because I can't animate.