Monitor issues

[wrayimmediate]

There are some horizontal lines at the top of my screen. They're invisible, though they do distort whatever is behind them in whatever colors are behind them. They start at the very top and distort down to about a half an inch. I know it's a hardware issue because i took a screenshot and the top isn't distorted when i look at it minimized.

It started maybe a few months ago. When I first turn the computer on after it being off for a while, or sleeping, the effected area would be very big, then gradually get smaller until it went away. Then after some time, maybe a few weeks, it stopped going away, rather, the effected area just grew smaller, but still remained.

Basically it looks like this; say I move my mouse up to the top of the screen. The top half of my cursor will be cut off, and folded back downward, stretched and distorted with the lines. The same goes for anything that's behind it. It's starting to affect the url field in my browser, and the 'file' 'edit' 'view' ect. menus in most programs.

My monitor is a compaq 7500. My pc's a compaq s3000nx Any help is much appreciated. Happy Halloween.

[exile360]

Yes, it definitely sounds like a hardware issue, either the video card (GPU) or the monitor. You can test which if you have a second PC to connect the monitor to. Plug the monitor into a different PC and see if the issue occurs, and if it does, then the monitor is the problem, if it does not, then it's your video card.

Another test would be if you had no second PC but did have a second monitor. Disconnect your current monitor and plug in your second monitor and see if the issue still occurs, if it does not, then it's the monitor that is the problem, if it does, then it's the video card (make sure you use a different cable to connect the second monitor, otherwise you aren't eliminating a bad monitor cable as a possible cause).

[wrayimmediate]

thanks, i have neither another pc or monitor.

[ShyWriter]

thanks, i have neither another pc or monitor.

Go into your video settings and try either a slower SCAN speed (70 instead of 75 or whatever) and if that doesn't help, try a different video size setting. Other than that, it's a failing video card or the monitor's fly-back transformer.

People with older CRT monitors can simulate this effect by adjusting the horizontal size (and/or position) to expand beyond the screen size; it folds back over onto itself.

Shy

[wrayimmediate]

Go into your video settings and try either a slower SCAN speed (70 instead of 75 or whatever) and if that doesn't help, try a different video size setting. Other than that, it's a failing video card or the monitor's fly-back transformer.

Shy

how do i get to my video settings and look for the scan setting? thanks

[ShyWriter]

how do i get to my video settings and look for the scan setting? thanks

It's been so long I couldn't tell you on a WinXP but if you RIGHT mouse click on a blank area of your Vista/Win7 desktop, a menu should come up that gives you access via a screen like this:

An alternative would be to go into the CONTROL PANEL and select MONITOR (or VIDEO - I forget) and go from there.

That's about the limit of my fuzzy 68 year old memory cells.. Hope something I wrote helped. Perhaps one or more of our more technical, younger users can get you further along if the above doesn't help.

Shy

[wrayimmediate]

Well I went into my 'display properties' and changed a few things just to see what would happen and switched them all back to where they were; until I got to 'screen refresh rate'. it was on 75hz. the other options were 85,72,70, and 60 hz. With either of those other options selected, the affected area grew equally smaller, but was still there. What does that mean?

[ShyWriter]

Well I went into my 'display properties' and changed a few things just to see what would happen and switched them all back to where they were; until I got to 'screen refresh rate'. it was on 75hz. the other options were 85,72,70, and 60 hz. With either of those other options selected, the affected area grew equally smaller, but was still there. What does that mean?

Well..It's a toss-up. Until you can swap out one of the units, we won't know.. I'm at my limits.. Sorry.

Steve

[wrayimmediate]

Cool, thanks a lot, I'm gonna try that.

[CWB]

if the problem (originally) improved after running a while (from a "cold" start) ... i would hazard that it is bad capacitors ... a flyback transformer is most usually (95%) a go/no go item .

as you have no way to swap out with a known good monitor for testing , it is a tough call as to which unit is at fault ; video card or monitor .

a possible way of telling is if there is a change in the symptoms from "cold" to "warmed up" ... but you mentioned that this stopped happening .

a possible solution might be :

if any change is still happening then with the comp and monitor both running (warmed up) you can :

(1) tell the comp to "keep running ; do not shut down / do not turn the monitor off" .

(2) manually turn off only the monitor .

(3) go about your business for the day ... a good time to perform this test is while you are sleeping .

(4) after several hours turn the monitor on ... and see if *something* changes as it runs .

(5) if something changes ... the monitor is quite possibly at fault .

you did not mention the model of your video card .

your comp and monitor shows to have been made around 2003/4 ... i would hazard that the monitor is the culprit ... bad cap city . and by now the crt is getting a little "soft" .

either way ... new lcd monitors are darn cheap at (for example) newegg ... but if your machine/video card is "older" it may not be able to drive the "wide screen" format types correctly . the old cards/comps could only drive the 4:3 aspect ratio .