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Screen problems (darkening)

Started by SirLuthor Apr 12, 2005 at 2:13 PM 8 replies 1k views

Original Post

Apr 12, 2005 at 2:13 PM

Hiya folks, I've been having a small but extremely annoying hardware problem lately. So, I have this nice moniter. It's somewhere in the 19-21" range, I've had it for almost 2 years, hasn't ever done anything strange on me yet, until a few days ago. At that point, for no reason as far as I can tell, it just started randomly getting brighter or darker (raising or lowering gamma/contrast, I think, because the colors didn't get washed out). It also frequently has, well, bands flickering on it now, which is also annoying. It is now significantly darker then it used to be, which is greatly annoying, to say the least. Could this be because the moniter has simply reached the end of it's days, or do I have a different hardware problem, possibly video card related? Thanks for reading!

zix99

Apr 12, 2005 at 2:20 PM

This happened to my monitor a while back, the lines. The lines went accross the screen horizontally, and were almost fuzzy, having nothing to do with hardware. A simple change of monitors fixed it (but that monitor was 5 years old). I also noticed that this happened more durring the summer, with a lot of heat/high humidity.. maybe something wet around? Or it just might be the end of its days...

~zix~

bytecoder

Apr 12, 2005 at 5:03 PM

Does adjusting the constrast do anything? The monitor I'm using right now resets the constrast all the way to 0 every time I turn it off for an extended period of time, so yours might be doing something similiar.

SirLuthor

Apr 13, 2005 at 9:20 AM

zix99: As far as I know, nothing wet around (or on!) the moniter, no unshielded magnetic devices or anything of that sort. Thanks anyway though!

bytecoder: Unfortunately, on this moniter, there are no options for adjusting the contrast, nor the brightness. If I try and do it in the NVidia config panel, it will stay that way for a while, but when I get back, the settings will be at the same changed levels, but the screen will be as dark as if I hadn't changed them. Vexing.

Any and all help appreciated!

benryves

Apr 13, 2005 at 9:24 AM

Is this a CRT or a flat-screen of some description? If it's a CRT I'd be very surprised that it didn't have some sort of brightness/contrast control on it somewhere - I, for one, have never seen one without one (but cheap LCDs sometimes don't).

SirLuthor

Apr 13, 2005 at 9:47 AM

CRT. I'll be damned! I looked again, found the brightness/contrast controls [smile] The reason I handn't seen them before is because they aren't accessed from the 'menu'... Anyway, while that is solved, I'd still kind of like to know why I'm 'banding'. Thanks Benryves!

benryves

Apr 13, 2005 at 9:54 AM

Could you explain the banding problems in greater detail?
Here are a few I've encountered:

Brief VERY bright white horizontal span, usually about 5cms tall (accompanied by loud pop) - about once every 10 minutes - caused by faulty power cable.

Flickering ripply bands, random locations, horizontal spans, lasting about 10 seconds - interference from mobile phone.

Static or slowly scrolling (up and down) darker regions which fade in and out - a combination of low refresh rates and bad strip lighting.

Flicking discoloured areas - bad solder joints in the RGB connector.

Avatar God

Apr 13, 2005 at 10:37 AM

I noticed my screen was darker a few nights ago, and couldn't figure out how to fix it. It wasn't until I went to brush my teeth a few hours later that I realized I was still wearing sunglasses.

benryves

Apr 13, 2005 at 10:57 AM

That made me remember the classic line:

Quote:
Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.
Jake: Hit it.

Ravuya

Apr 13, 2005 at 11:01 AM

Quote:
Original post by benryves
That made me remember the classic line:

Quote:
Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.
Jake: Hit it.

That makes me remember the classic line:

Quote:
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole multi colored collection of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.

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