A few days ago I was at a university website, left my computer for a few hours, and came back to find the colours all messed up. I don’t know how to describe it, but basically, any dark background colours make the horizontal part of the screen grey on those areas (the darker the colour, the darker the line). For example, as I am typing this, my monitor is filled with grey lines because of the text. I’ve run scandisk and defragmented my windows drive already, but it hasn’t helped. The odd thing is that, even before the computer is booted up, the screen still gets this way. That is, during boot up when the windows picture shows, I still get the weird shades of grey. I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but a few days ago when my computer was coming out of suspend my printer printed a page with one single black heart on the paper, which leads me to believe that it may be a virus (since I had nothing to be printed); however, I know of no viruses that have such an effect.
Oh, and also, I tried my other monitor on the same computer and I still have these lines, so it has nothing to do with the monitor showing its age or something like that. I also am running Windows 98SE.
This is a problem with your monitor - it is referred to as “ghosting”. It could be the result of signal interference, a loose cable, or just a failing display tube. How old is the monitor?
Mister V, he switched the monitor and it still happened. Thus it is not the monitor. It is most likely the cable or video card, unless there is something strongly magnetic in the vicinity of the monitor. However, even this produces an effect unlike what you’re describing. It could also be some sort of radio interference. Is the monitor near a wall, with a neighbor on the other side? Make sure you check all sides of the monitor, as well as underneath. I had a problem with my monitor, until I realized I had left a magnetic paperweight in the drawer underneath.
If there’s nothing near the monitor that could be affecting it, I’d check the cable connections, and if they seem alright, open up your computer (unplugged, of course). Disconnect the monitor cable, and carefully unplug the video card from the motherboard. Check the pins on the card, and if they seem to be alright, reseat the card carefully, plug the monitor back in, and check to see if the lines are sitll there.
If this doesn’t solve it, the socket on the motherboard could be bad, or it could be something as simple as Windows setting the refresh rate way too high for the monitor. Look at the Display Properties settings to make sure. In fact, try this before opening up your PC.
Ok, I have a coordless (900mhz) phone and a small colour TV within approximately two feet of the monitor. However, I’ve had these objects here for years without any ill-effects. Also, when I turn off both of said items the effect remains. I have since tried resetting the powersupply, cleaning the video card connections/checking for broken connections, and have also looked for any other sources of interference. I should also say that the video card is a 32mb Geforce SDR and is around a year old. I guess I will try to find my old video card and install it later tonight.
Thanks for the help and I’ll be back if it doesn’t work.