Monitor go boom?

G

General Crespin

2[H]4U
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Jan 13, 2006
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ViewSonic G90f 19" flat CRT, been using it for two and a half, three months
XFX GeForce 7800 GTX OC with 84.25 drivers
XP Pro SP2
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium

Last night, I was watching a video when my monitor all of a sudden reset itself (with a pop/click, as it always does when changing resolutions) into a bar a few inches high, vertically centered. It only showed the top part of the desktop, it wasn't squeezing the whole display into that area, but it didn't show the bottom. When I pushed the reset button on my monitor, it made a pop/clicking noise like when changing resolutions, but nothing displayed.

I rebooted via the reset button on my tower, and the monitor didn't start displaying again until it reached the Windows XP loading screen, with the blue bar. Since then it's been acting normal. No funny smells at any time or anything.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks. :)
 
Yes, I have an idea! Mine, an NEC FE700 started doing just that about 3 or 4 months ago, then we got the new BFG vid card and within a week it did that pop clunk thing then made no more noise, no more pictures, just the pitiful little "Multisync" LED at the bottom blinking on and off. Now it's sitting on the street waiting for recycling pickup. Got a 19" LG LCD to replace it. I hope that's not what yours is about to do.
 
I was playing Oblivion a couple minutes ago when the screen went crazy, twice. For a few seconds each time, the display was filled with bars of weird colors and stripes and stuff. It was a few minutes apart, no apparent cause on-screen.

A minute or so after the second time, the monitor went into standby or whatever, it said "Off Mode in 5 seconds" and that was it. When I pushed buttons on the monitor, it made the usual pop/clicky noise and sounded like it was doing something but nothing happened. I could still hear sounds and stuff from the game.

So... The display corruption has me thinking of GPU problems, but the monitor problem doesn't seem GPU. Unless it's a bad cable or something in the monitor?

EDIT: Forgot to say, the monitor is working fine after I rebooted via the reset button, loaded up Oblivion quick to test it and no problems, so whatever this is is intermittent.
 
Check all your cables make sure they're well seated, maybe even dis-connect blow out any dust and re-connect. Pull out the video card, dust well and re-seat it. See if that helps at all. I didn't mention before our monitor quit, I replaced our aging GeForce 4200Ti with a BFG GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP. Before that, the monitor would often do a resizing cycle, like it was changing resolutions, this happened a lot during games when the back of the monitor was so hot you could smell it. The resizing thing stopped but within, oh, maybe 3 weeks, that's when the monitor just quit.
So the question remains, did the new graphics card have so much oomph that it made the monitor blow or was the monitor already on the way out, along with the aging graphics card? Either way, I bought an LG 19" LCD, it had 2 bad pixels, took it back, next one had 1 bad pixel and took it back, now we decided on a Samsung 930B and the difference is very clear, it's built much sturdier, heavier, the display is thicker by about an inch. It's much much easier to adjust as far as color, brightness, constrast, all those important things and the picture difference is like going from regular TV to HDTV, games have things in them I never saw on the old monitor. This is just to say if your CRT does blow maybe you should consider an LCD. I think ViewSonic is best and Samsung or NEC may be second best. Let me know of any new developments. I'll try to help.
 
I did the first few things that you suggested the first time this happened, reseated cables and graphics card, cleaned it all out, etc. Unfortunately the weird problems have only happened twice so far and no reason that I know of... yet...

This monitor is brand new (pretty close), so I hope it's nothing something with it, or the graphics card. If the problem is either of them, I can get them replaced, but it's such a hassle. (and heck, why not get a 7900 if I do need to get this GPU replaced, maybe I can trade up ;))

My mom has an LCD, I've used it a few times and it is nice. At the time I bought my computer, I needed to get a monitor because my old one was dying and I was already stretched pretty thin budget-wise so I got CRT. LCD is definitely an option if this one does go boom, though. :p
 
Try changing the refresh rate on the monitor. I had one vid card and monitor combo that somehow defaulted to 110hz refresh rate, and although it was within the monitor specs, it did not function well at that speed.

I usually set my CRTs to 75 or 85 hz. Regardless of what you actually use, set it to something other than what it is now and see. If it's set to 60, you should bump it up some anyhow just to reduce flicker.
 
Was looking for something else in this thread, but: It's currently, and has been since I got it, at 85Hz. :)
 
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