Cursor issue - strange text on screen

Hi folks, very computer illiterate so please excuse. I have some lines of text attached to the cursor and to various areas of the screen - toolbar at top, dock at bottom of screen, all files on desktop. Have turned off computer, unplugged it and said abracadabra. Text still there like a bug that has attached itself. Text is in the form of a block made up of small chunks of 5 tiny vertical lines in 4 columns of 8 chunks. Any ideas how I can get rid of it?
Carrie

Welcome to Apple Discussions,
Those symptoms could unfortunately indicate video hardware trouble. Take a look at this old thread in the iMac G5 forum (there are a number of similar threads there as well):
[Small lines / dots over parts of screen|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1874655]
Is your display similar to the image link in the first post there? See the other posts in that thread as well.
What kind of computer are you using? Other models can have similar video hardware issues, but iMac G5s are particularly susceptible to these, my own previous computer included.
Your own problem still could be from a software issue, but I would run Apple Hardware Test - it should be on one of the the original install discs that came with your computer.

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Hi,
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Message was edited by: brassknucklenerd

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Below my original messages:
I started having a strange problem with the mouse cursor. I started the computer, the mouse worked fine as always. Suddenly the cursor started fixating on a point on the lower right portion of the screen. I would move the cursor, it would move maybe halfway across the screen for a split second and then snap right back to the starting position.
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function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
doug87510 wrote:
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Cursor issue - strange text on screen

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