Got myself an HP Pavilion desktop setup with an mx70 monitor and a set of polkaudio speakers. This stuff is all straight out of the HP box. It’s all about three years old.
The speakers slot into little holes on the side of the monitor enabling them to hang there. In other words, they’re designed as part of the original unit, and are intended to be there.
Thing is, I notice a magnetically-induced ‘shimmy’ on the screen when music is playing throught the speakers. It’s very slight, but it’s there. Visually, it doesn’t bother me. In fact, I only really see it when a white background is being displayed, and even then I don’t really mind it.
Am I screwing up the CRT by allowing this to continue? I could place the speakers away from the monitor, just sitting on the computer desk somewhere towards the edges. The audiophiles here would probably tell me to do this as a matter of course, but it’s hardly a Hi-Fi arrangement anyway, and I mostly only use it to use my steam locomotive simulation software.
If I place the speakers away from the monitor, they’ll look a bit weird because they are all curvy except for one flat edge which is supposed to sit flush against the monitor’s side. So, the speakers are of sufficiently shitty fidelity that the aesthetics probably override the sound quality. I can only get them another foot or so away anyhow.
It’s probably from magnets in the speakers. This could cause permanent and incorrect colors (i mean, you could get it fixed, but it’d cost more than a CRT itself nowadays…). If you don’t care, it’s probably not going to blow up or anything.
To be honest, I’m not sure that the speakers would cause any permanent damage to your monitor. The magnetic strength of the speakers is probably not quite strong enough to do more than wobble your screen a little bit.
You might try changing the refresh rate of your monitor to see if this eliminates the screen shimmy that you’re seeing. Right-click on an empty area of your Windows desktop and choose “properties”. Go to the “settings” tab and click the “advanced” button. Go to the “monitor” tab and change your monitor’s refresh rate to the next higher or lower value and see if this makes the shimmy better or worse. I’ve done this with monitors that were close to large power supplies and was able to reduce or eliminate the magnetic interference on the screen.
I don’t particularly care about the magnetic shimmy as it occurs, but I do care about any potential permanent damage, such as weird colours burned into the screen even when the speakers are out of use.
So far, so good. The music stops playing, and the monitor is as good as it was when I brought it home new from the store. I’m planning on keeping the thing another two or three years, though.
The speakers you have mounted on the monitor are likely rated for computer monitor use, meaning their permanent magnet strength is not high enough to affect the monitor. Minor distortion while driving the speakers is probably not going to cause any long-term damage.
If your monitor has a ‘Degauss’ selection on the menu, you might consider degaussing it every 3 or 4 months, to make sure any residual magnetism in the CRT is eliminated.
Whats happening is that a stream of electrons is being shot at your monitor screen. It’s being directed by magnets close to the origin of the stream. Your speakers are pulling and pushing that stream away from it’s target, just a little bit.
To solve the problem completely, you will probably have to move the speakers. Since the problem is easily reproducible, you can quickly find the additional distance necessary to prevent the distortion – just undock the speaker and move it away from the monitor until you can’t see the distortion.
I have a friend that had a HP with that setup. She had a similar problem(hers was all the time, not just during audio playback). Finally I just ditched the speakers, and gave her a spare set I had. It didn’t bother her much, but it drove me crazy when I would work on her system. If you are worried just get another set of speakers. Any cheap set will perform the same or better.
If your monitor does this, it might not have a ‘degauss’ selection in it’s menu, or the menu selected version may operate differently (more thoroughly).