Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Technical Help and How To's STILL having problems - Monitor vs. Desktop

For the last couple of days, I've noticed that my desktop is being weird - the sides will jerk slightly inwards and then go back. I thought it might be a virus, but I made sure I was updated (even though it updates every day) - no virus. My firewall is fine. Now I'm getting brief horizontal lines go across the screen.

Anybody got any suggestions? Or is my monitor just ready to die? (Hey, I've been wanting one of those snazzy new ones anyway.) I think in the past when I've had a monitor die, it died quickly and just turned black...

Oh. And it's a plug and play so I wouldn't think I'd need updated drivers.

Did you start using anything else electronic lately (since the problem started) close to the monitor?

malu

Sounds like a problem with the monitor, which I'm assuming is an old-style CRT type, not LCD. My guess on that basis would be a capacitor starting to fail, which is repairable but probably costs more than a new monitor. But first check if it has a "degauss" setting (depending on the age of the monitor it might be a button, or you might need to go into the menus and find it). Pressing that may clear the problem - basically, this can happen sometimes if bits of the internal mechanism get magnetised, though the jerky part isn't likely. The other things to check are that the VGA lead isn't damaged and is plugged in properly, and that the power lead is in properly.

Further to what Malu said, speaker magnets near the monitor can also sometimes cause problems like this.

I'll check all this after work guys. Thanks. Yes, it's CRT but is actually fairly new. I've had it a couple of years.

So, Marcus... How would I know what a deguass setting? I have lots of little pictures.

Usually it looks like a horseshoe-shaped magnet.

Thanks. I've got that and am trying now.

Whoa... That did something.

This seems to have worked, Marcus, so thanks very much!!

So I tried the degauss and it initially seems to work, but today the monitor quit. I hooked it up to the monitor that I'd been using on my other computer (which came with the first PC that I was talking about). At first it seemed fine, but now the desktop is squished. I have about an inch of black space on the right side, and about a 1/2 inch along the bottom. Changing the desktop settings didn't help. Playing around with the monitor only stretched everything out. It seems like I had this problem once before, but I don't remember what I did to fix it.

Any other suggestions?

And maybe this would help. Before the other monitor quit everything was enlarged but you couldn't see the whole desktop. It was also blurry. And if I hit the button on the monitor, it seemed to automatically do the degauss thing but then I had lines of color go across the screen.

You may need to adjust the frequency setting (not the picture size) from the desktop.

Sorry that degauss didn't work out - it may be that it was the last straw that broke the camel's back, it does put a bit of a strain on the electronics, and if something else was wrong it may have tipped it over the edge.

Uhh... How do I do that? Is that the one where I reset the size of the desktop?

Right click on the desktop; select Properties then settings then advanced, which will give you a menu or menus specific to the graphics card in your PC. One of them will be for the monitor, and should say something like "frequency" or "screen refresh rate".

I can't guarantee this will work - it may be that the monitor will only work with a lower screen resolution or something - but it may be worth a shot. If the screen goes fuzzy or something don't worry - it'll revert to the old settings if you don't confirm you want to keep the new ones.