Tall image problem (Win98 and Netscape)

[Bob Duncan]

This one really has me stumped.

I just unpacked some brand new PCs (Gateway E-4200s) running Win98 (second
edition) and Netscape Navigator (standalone, version 4.08).  Whenever the
browser encounters a "tall" image--one whose height requires vertical
scrolling to see all of the image--a peculiar set of things happens.  The
initial screen looks fine, but after scrolling down a bit the image is all
jumbled (for lack of a better word)--sometimes solid black;  sometimes a
combination of the image and other graphics on the screen (taskbar, menus,
etc.);  sometimes a combination of the image and one from a previous page
(!);  sometimes just a mess of lines.  If I scroll down to where the image
falls apart and surf to another page, then use the browser's back button,
the page looks fine (usually) until I scroll back up then scroll down again
(at which point it looks like junk again).  The offending images are used
as backgrounds, but the behavior is the same even when they are saved
locally and viewed on their own.  I tried a different version of Netscape
(Communicator 4.6) and saw the same behavior.  However, the images look
fine in IE5 and no other display problems have been noticed.

I tried altering color depth, with no change.  I tried altering screen
resolution, and only saw a change when res was so high that the images fit
one screen.

The behavior is consistent from image to image (2 gifs and 1 jpg on the
three pages noted at end of message all do the same thing).  The exact
behavior exists on every machine I've installed (4 so far).  I'd be
inclined to think something is funky with the display adapters or the
monitors, but wonder if they could be culprits since the images look fine
in IE?  (Gateway EV700 monitors;  ATI Rage 128GL 16MB AGP video cards ("for
NT", says the packing slip).)

Any known problems of this sort out in Web4Lib land?  (These are my first
and only Win98 machines.  My Win95 machines have no problem with the same
pages, but they also have different display adapters.)  Is it possible the
display adapter and Netscape and/or Win98 could be disagreeing on how
images are rendered?  (Does IE handle images differently than Netscape?)

Example pages (in case I'm not the only one afflicted):
	<http://www.pmpartners.com/training/index.html>
and just because I know they use big graphics:
	<http://www.mtv.com/>
	<http://www.tvguide.com/>

Help!

Bob Duncan

~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
  Robert E. Duncan
  Systems Librarian
  David Bishop Skillman Library
  Lafayette College
  Easton, PA 18042
  610-330-5156
  duncanr at lafayette.edu
  http://www.library.lafayette.edu/