3 Monitors down! Please help!

[alohaking]

I posted this at another cpu problem forum, and had some feedback. Unfortunately, nothing fixed the problem. I was told to come here and try, so here goes.

Ok, first off my cpu specs. 1 gig Athlon T-Bird, Gigabyte Motherboard, 256mb SDRAM, GE Force 2 MX video card, AOC 9GLRS-19" monitor, Alcatel speed touch DSL modem (BellSouth), Muse sound card, Toshiba DVD, Ricoh cd-burner, Creative 56k modem. I am also running Window ME.

I am a gamer. I've had this current machine set-up for about a year now and have experienced no problems. All of a sudden, about 3 weeks ago I'm playing Rogue Spear. Just fyi, I also play Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot. Well, I was playing, and all of a sudden, I get a purple tint to the screen which makes the game very dark and unplayable. I figured, "just a glitch", and I rebooted. It fixed the problem. Well, about 20 minutes later, here it happens again. Reboot, no fix. Well, I try a defrag. No fix. ****Begins to scratch his head*** I try a virus scan, no virus, no fix. I check online for updated drivers for video card and monitor. No new drivers, no fix.

Well, the tint came and went. One day it seemed to be gone. About 8 straight hours of clear screen (yes, I'm a game addict). Well, it was at a critical time in my game that this happend again, and well....with all the frustration of the game and this returning problem, I....smacked the heck out of the monitor. Guess what. It went back to normal.

Eureka! It's the monitor!

I call the manufacturer for repair/replace policy and procedure. Still under warranty, it's a piece of cake and costs me 28 bucks to ship it. Well, in the mean time, I borrowed a friends NEC 19" monitor. Plug her in and play as usual. Well, about 1 hour into gaming, I get a normal lock up. (if theres a such thing as normal) Well, no problem. I reboot and upon start up, I hear windows on my speakers, but there is NO display on the monitor. I check cables, power cords, everything. No display. I restart, and still no display. I hesitatingly call my friend and tell him the bad news. He drives over with his laptop, plugs his monitor into his machine and same problem, no display.

I had an older 15" monitor that I was willing to use just to make sure this wasn't just a severe case of bad luck and coincidence. Same problem, but this one lost all capabilities to see the red color. I also noticed that my AOC monitor cant see green colors.

Three monitors down now. I then see that it's not the monitor.

A few days later, my AOC monitor is back. "Great customer service AOC!" First, I take out my GE Force 2 MX and remove all drivers for it. I installed my older Rage 16mb card before I ever connected my AOC monitor fresh from the shop. Seems to be fine, well, for 2 hours. Then, here we go again. Back to the purple tint.

I think that I can now narrow it down that the problem lies neither with my monitor or the video card. I have asked all my friends with any type of cpu knowledge and we are all stumped.

I have replaced the monitor's power cable. Also, I have moved anything that might remotely have a magnetic field away from my monitor. Still no fix.

Now, I know my way around a cpu. Probably a little more than your normal 'Home shopping club' lady who buys the newest Gateway that's out. I personally put together my machine, and I will not buy a preassembled machine. Well, maybe one from Alien Ware or another great source. But my point is, I do normal maintenance on my machine, and I take care and pride in it. I don't download tons of crap that has any remote chance of having a virus. And if I think there is a chance, I scan it at least 3 times for virus'. I defrag once a week, and keep a clean hard drive. My machine has all well-known hardware and no generic items. All drivers are current for everything.

Any help would be immensly appreciated. If you have experienced this problem, or know of a possible fix, please let me know. I'll try what I hear from you all, and will respond with the results. If you require any more information of my machine, leave a post and again, I'll respond.

I eagerly await your responses.

Thanks,
Allen

 

[c0rv1d43]

Just for starters, what kinds of settings for the video subsystems are you using? I really haven't seen the issue I'm thinking of in quite a while. I remember when people used to fairly routinely burn their monitors by setting them at higher refresh rates and resolutions than they could tolerate. AFAIK that's the only obvious possible cause that would fit the story. I suppose a really vicious 155 KHz signal being coupled to the monitor from the power line might do it, too. But then I'd expect to see you having nasty problems with the rest of the system, too.

- Collin

Edited to remove angry face. I'm not angry. I'm just sad for you -- and for your friend who also lost a monitor.

 

[LikeLinus]

Could this possibly be the signals the AGP/PCI slot that is being sent from the MOBO? This could be a defective motherboard. Try and change out your motherboard and see what happens

 

[miken]

Sounds like your refresh rates are too high. Try lowering them. Have you had any large power sources installed in that room/house lately? A circuit breaker box maybe?

 

[gsaldivar]

Invest in a good UPS.

 

[alohaking]

I went to the AOC site, and got the actual specs for my monitor. It said 75khz, and my display properties were set at "Optimal". I set it specifically to 75 and let it run for about two hours with no fix. I rebooted, and decided to let it run for a while. I also turned the machine off for an hour, just to see if that would help. It didn't.

Me personally, I'd think that if the power supply was bad, then I'd have many more problems. Maybe I'm wrong. For now, I can deal with the annoying purple tint since it comes and goes. I am taking my machine into a shop to have an extensive diagnostic run on it. It's gonna cost me 40 bucks.

Even though my problem is narrowing down, I am going to save what info I can on disk and format. I'm gonna start from scratch and not install a single game or program besides drivers for hardware. Then, I'll simply let it run for a while. Probably watch a DVD and wait to see if I still get the purple tint. If it comes back, then I'll go ahead and copy my saved files and definitely take the machine in to the shop. I want to do this just to make sure that I didn't somehow get some new virus that has sneaked past my virus programs. Lockdown, Norton's and McAfee's have all been run and no virus's detected.

Any help / advice would be great.

Thanks for all your input so far.

Allen

 

[jamarno]

Don't take it to a computer shop because they rarely know their way around monitors. A monitor specialist or TV shop is a much better bet. You don't really run diagnostics to test a monitor but just check for loose connections (as you did by slapping it) and maybe measure voltages. The colors shouldn't change with the scan rates. I think your problem is with the cable, a connector (external or internal), or cracked solder.

 

[Belegost]

I had something like that happen to a monitor about 5 years back. As best I can tell, it came down to power problems, since after I hooked up a line conditioner the problem went away.

 

[night]

if it were a res/refresh setting then the picture would look like crap. theres no missing it when a monitor cant do something.
did AOC check you monitor at all or just send you another one ? if they actually looked into yours, it would be worth tryin to find out from them what was wrong.
that can help tell what messed it up.

my screen has a steady slow 'wave'. a horizontal wave (sliding left and right) rolls down my screen constantly. it just started this and its kinda annoying . i hope mine is going on me...