Ok, so this has been a consistent problem that I’ve been finding ways around it for a while but I’m so god damn tired of dealing with it.
No, it’s not women.
My monitor is a fucking jerk. It has this disgusting habit of starting to fuzz out and then go completely dark, then flash back on, like someone fucking with the light switch. But the monitor “power” is still on.
There are two ways I deal with this:
Leave WoW or any application which takes up the entire screen (in which you have to hit alt-tab to reach your desktop and it takes a second or so for it to pull up) running, and the screen stabilizes itself. After which the monitor will be have anywhere between a few days to a few minutes.
Leave Ruckus up and running. It can go full screen, but full screen in reguards to ‘you can minimize the window and stretch/shrink it.’
Knock the christ out of it. I literally grasp my monitor, pick it up slightly, and then bang the bottom of it on my desk a few times. It’ll start flickering back up and will work for a time being, depending on how convincing the violence was. Sometimes I can beat on the top of it and it’ll start working, too.
And no; leaving the monitor/computer off for a few days doesn’t work either. My monitor needs either WoW or a beating to stay happy and working. Sometimes, it’ll be just fine and stay normal. I’m not sure WHAT causes it to do so and WHY it fixes itself to such unorthodox methods.
I don’t want to buy a new monitor just yet, just in case it might be some setting on my computer. For the record, though, the monitor is a HP…
This ever happen to ya’ll? Should I go ahead and buy a new one and drop-kick this one off my third-story apartment onto the cobbles below in a fiery blaze of glory?
Anyways, just go out and buy a new one, IF this hasn’t happened before getting your current monitor but using the same computer. If it has, check the video cards first.
Basically, do what everyone else above me just said, but in an ordered fashion.
NVIDA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 is the video card. I updated the driver; turns out it was muchly needed. That might change things… and changed my comp. resolution lower. Does that usually help?
Also, I’m guessing VGA. When I move my computer around from place to place occasionally, I don’t remember the pins looking the way the DVI does.
Nothing worked. Eventually, hitting the sides, top, everything, had no effect. WoW started getting shakes as well.
So I bought a new one. 17 inch, flat screen. 135 bones.
Get home, plug it in,
SAME DAMN SHIT!!!
I explained the problem to the store guys, they also said get a monitor.
Jesus shit.
Plan: Plug power into new outlet, download latest videocard driver (Nvidia) dis-install the video card/reboot/re-install using the driver. And check the monitor plug for the tower.
It’d be the videocard or possibly the cable then. If it is the card and not the cable it’s unlikely that merely reinstalling it is going to help; you’ll want to see if you can’t find a known working card to test with, and if that works, well, buy a new card.
If the card was failing, it would show a different kind of display problem. I’ve seen a couple vid cards fail and there are specific graphical glitches that come up (and these aren’t it). I think it might be the cable or the way the cable fits into the card. Thoughts?
Before you go out and buy shit, make sure the video card isn’t just loose. Make sure it’s tight in its slot in all places.
Does the problem tend to come up when you’re doing something specific? Are there patterns you notice? If it’s not the card or the monitor, it’s probably software related. I don’t really buy the bad cord theory. Those things are solid. I mean, it’s possible, but I’ve never seen anything fuck up because of a cord, anywhere, ever. Except headphones.
On second thought, if bashing your monitor actually fixes the problem, it very well could be a loose wire. You just gotta check everything. I’ve grown to hate computers because of how prone they are to fucking up, so good luck.
Roomate lent me a spare monitor power chord he had, and it WORKED FINE! For twenty minutes. Then I put it on stand-by, turned the monitor off, and went to a gig. Came back, same shit. I turn it off and crank it back up. HP logo loads, the hard drive selection screen loads… and then it switches to the same screen of; no signal input, check video cable.
Which was weird. The old cable was crap, the new cable that came with the computer crapped out, and for some reason the one roomie let me borrow worked for a bit, until it didn’t.
I called a tech buddy of mine, he thinks it’s the video card as well. Probably because it’s intergrated? He says to test it using another video card, install it, and it’ll overwrite the old one. I think… another friend of mine is a cpu hardware wizard of 10+ years, I’ll get him to finally crack at it Monday.
It really pissed me off after I came back from the gig (pep-band stuff) too; I was looking forward to jumping on my prot. warrior and tearing up Arathi Basin… :sadness: