Oh, Oh! Got a problem w/monitor or GForce 4

[Guest]

This just started a couple of days ago is getting worse...my monitor (screen) colors keep changing...dimming and yellowing and then returning to proper colors, now fading into a dimmer screen, white varies from bluish to yellowish.Anyone familiar with this as a symptom of a graphics card failure or monitor dying? Can't really try out another card or monitor to test without a lot time and trouble, I suspect the monitor...?Geforce 4 MMX 440 (less than 1 year old) with an Optiquest monitor 3 years old.

[Guest drobson]

Sounds like you had better ask Santa for a new monitor, and quick!Darrell

[Guest]

I guess I'll wait until it goes out completely.. hate the thought of spending $200 only to find out that the problem is something else. But I'm fairly sure you're right....hmmm, screen just dimmed to a bluish white again. Probably won't have to wait long at this rate, I can see it fluctuating as I write this post. And what I really wanted for Christmas was woodcarving tools!! Darn!

[KERNEL32 495]

Do you keep it on all the time? We have a guy here at work that keeps his on all the time, no screensaver, no power save, etc. His is only 3 months old and it started to do that. I told him to turn the damn thing off at night before he left and it seemed to have "cleared" itself up. Try and wait it out before dropping $150-$200 especially now during the holidays!

[Guest]

I had been using the power-off mode after 20 minutes, but I didn't manually turn it off. It's actually powered off for 80% of a the day, as I am not on it constantly. The last couple of nights I have manually turned it off, but still acting up!

[KERNEL32 495]

What a hell- give it a good smack in the side!

[Guest Vulcho]

Yup, I get that.Does that happen only in panel view mode?What I have found out is that you have to change resolution. Often times, high end panels do that sort of thing. I change resolution to XxXx32. If you are under 16 bit and not 32, you will get that. Try changing resolution under 16 bit color first, if that doesn't work, change to 32 bit.Options-->settings-->displayTell me how that works out for you.Alex.ERROR:Banner is 6.6KB, 15 pixels (width) above limit. Cannot Display!

[CF104 0]

Hello Leafhopper,Yup, sounds like the monitor. Same thing happened last March to my 17" ProView. I think you'll find that when video cards go, they just die.... no fooling around.Cheers,JohnBoeing 727/737 mechanic

[Guest]

Okay, I changed to 16 bit, came on bright and nice....for about 30 seconds, and then started the fluctuations again. Guess I'll start shopping for a new 19" (19 is what I have now and I could not bear the thought of going smaller again. Tiger has a MAG 19 inch .25mm High Contrast for $179.99 (after rebate $50). Darn!

[Guest outtatimeiii]

MAG's are very nice monitors. Im very happy with my 17" MAG 770FS. I would of gone bigger, but I didnt have the space for it.My older computer had a problem similar to your problem about 2 years ago. The Komodo 17" monitor got real dim and colors got real weird (didnt have anything by it) and it made a zap sound and cut off for like 30 min. I tried deguassing and everything else, still did it. One day it made a LOUD ZAP and that was the end LOL. Lucky it was still under warranty and I got a better one for free :) .

[Guest Paul_W]

>Anyone familiar with this as a symptom of a graphics card >failure or monitor dying? Can't really try out another card >or monitor to test without a lot time and trouble, I suspect >the monitor...? Recently I had a progressively worsening problem with video interference--fine horizontal lines stabbing into the display from left and right, then going away, then coming back worse than before, etc. I thought it might be caused by some kind of electrical interference, and went around checking and re-routing cables and so forth...but it wasn't that simple.I've never heard of video cards simply going bad, but since I've had system RAM give out before, I thought it might be possible. So I substituted an older NVidia Riva TNT2 Model 64 for the existing GF3 Ti200, and everything was stable again, for about a week anyway--then the same problem reappeared.At that point--and I was really hoping it wouldn't be the case--the monitor became the chief suspect: Perhaps my jazzy Sony 17-inch flat-screen Trinitron (about a year old) wasn't such a quality device after all, and like you I sure didn't want to go out and buy a new 17-inch screen. I was about to substitute an old 15-inch monitor to do some troubleshooting, when I came across the Windows XP troubleshooter just by chance one day. One of the possibilities it listed for video problems was an outdated BIOS, so even though I have a less-than-year-old Epox 8KHA+ main board, I did a restart, and went into the BIOS to see if anything was astray. But everything appeared to be okay; then I noticed that the blue screen display in the BIOS wasn't flickering and breaking up as the Windows display had been. Hmmm....So I let it sit there in those blue screens for something like 45 minutes, and saw no display problems at all. It was beginning to look like my monitor had been unfairly suspected after all. The thing is, I made no changes in the BIOS--I simply exited and let Windows XP load as usual, and the video has been fine ever since (it's been about a week and a half up to this point, and the change has been very obvious). So it would appear that when I changed video cards and the display originally reverted to stability, it wasn't the replacement card so much as the fact that the system had been fully restarted.While this problem is not the same as you've described, since I've recently been faced with a video issue, I'd make this suggestion: If you can't fully troubleshoot the issue, and you do decide to buy a replacement monitor, it might be a good idea to go through Best Buy (if you're in the US), since--as of a year ago anyway--they have a 30-day return policy. In fact I did return a Samsung monitor that I'd originally bought there and replaced it with my current Sony from the same store, and they were a pleasure to deal with. I know other retailers would have charged a re-stocking fee of 15% in the same situation.If the problem turns out not to have been your monitor then, and you don't want a new one for other reasons, you'll be able to return it, then look into the video card, or other potential causes of the problem.Good luck then!

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

I though screensavers weren't much help for newer monitors. Is that true? I don't have one because of long flights in FS, don't want it to go on and potentially distort my graphics. Turning it off is a good idea, but make sure you don't turn it on shortly after. Computers are like that too, the longer they're on the better, to a point. Rapid on and offs will kill it very quickly.

[Guest]

You might try this....I had a monitor doing that exact thing. I have a friend who repairs monitors so I took it to him. He found, I think, it was 2 or 3 1 watt resistors that had bad solder joints due to the heat they had endured. He resoldered the joints and I have had no further problem.He explained these resistors take the energy and dissipate it when the screen has turned itself off but the power switch is on. This is how I used to run mine. I never turned it off, I just set it up to kill the screen after 15 minutes and the monitor would eventually go into sleep mode. I now turn it off.Hope this helps ya!Earl.... "and the greatest of these is Love." I Cor. 13:13

[Guest Vulcho]

Try changing vid. drivers. Also, lower the display options to min in FS. Play with the driver options as well.ERROR:Banner is 6.6KB, 15 pixels (width) above limit. Cannot Display!

[Guest]

I appreciate everyone's input and shared experiences with this problem. Since my monitor problems occur no matter what program I am in, and the monitor's on-screen menue background is not a really ugly yellow color, and since the boot-up messages are now a dull yellowish white instead of the crisp bright white I had, I am now certain that it is the monitor. The resistor burn out mentioned above is certainly a possibility, but I live in the Oregon outback not handy to any good electronics repair shops. I think the Best Buy idea is a great one, thanks for that Paul W! This is what I will probably do, and take this one to a shop in Salem and have them look it over. If it is salvageable, I'll give it to my wife.Oh, I did try changing the video card drivers as soon as this problem started, so no go there.Great group on this forum, as always, very helpful and concerned...Thanks so much.