Did my CRT just die?

[Starbuck1975]

I have a nearly 5 years old Samsung SyncMaster 900NF. Over the past few weeks, I have noticed the color intensity decreasing significantly, to the point where it was starting to look a bit pale. I assumed it meant my monitor was starting to go, which is why I have another thread going on an LCD replacement.

Well the other night I was gaming, and suddenly the screen flashed. After this occurred, what remained on my screen can only be described as symmetrical vertical stripes. Some of the stripes remained clear as if nothing was wrong, but the alternating stripes had all kinds of funky noise and discoloring.

I closed out of the game, but the stripes remained. Again, some of the stripes remain clear, and my OS appears normal. The defective striping actually had the last image of the gaming screen burned into the monitor.

I shut down, reboot, and the monitor came up fine. However, once I started a program, the issues resumed. This time, I noticed what appeared like random green and violet lines appearing in various places on the screen. If I open a program, and move it, a ghosting effect occurs, again with banding...sometimes symmetrical, other times random.

Are these the symptoms of a dying monitor

 

[LittleNemoNES]

ummm they definitely aren't signs of a HEALTHY monitor... time to start looking for new LCD.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Well in either case, it is certainly forcing my hand on that upgrade I have been wanting to do.

 

[Jeff7181]

If you have another video card available to test, I'd give that a try to rule that out before coughing up $300+

 

[compudog]

Sounds like a video card problem and not a monitor problem to me. If you have a spare card to test it, I would try that first.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Unfortunately, I dont have another video card on hand...I may be able to talk the tech guys at work to let me borrow a monitor for a night...if the problem persists across more then one monitor, then its definitely the video card.

Out of curiosity, what would cause a video card to fail like this? Could it possibly be software related?

 

[akugami]

Bad PSU could do it. Severe overclocking. Blown capacitor. Don't rule out a crappy monitor cable being the culprit as well.

 

[jaythespacehound]

Amusingly almost the same thing happened to me last year.
Turned out both the monitor and the GPU were dead/dying

 

[Starbuck1975]

Well I checked my system with another monitor, and the same problem emerged...so its not the monitor, which I suppose is a good thing.

Others mentioned that it could be my PSU or GPU? Is it possible that it could be a driver issue, or do such problems usually indicate dying hardware.

 

[compudog]

Heat can cause on-screen artifacts. Try removing the VGA card, inspect the heatsink fan, try and gently turn it with your finger, or, better yet, see if you can see if it is running before removing it from your PC. Obviously, you want to be very careful poking around inside a powered-up PC. If the fan is turning when powered on, shut down the PC, remove the VGA card and blow off the heatsink fins and fan with canned air. See if this makes the problem go away. You can also replace the heatsink fan with an after-market model (if yours is removable) or replace the VGA card altogether. Good Luck!

 

[Starbuck1975]

I did confirm that all of my fans were running, and I am encountering this problem straight from a cold boot...so dont think system temps are causing the issue.

I did clean out the filters on my fans about a week ago...while I didnt come into contact with any components, I might have some dust bunnies I knocked loose and are now attacking my video card.

If the heatsink did go on my VGA card, its not worth the hassle trying to salvage...I have been hesitating on a system upgrade for months...good excuse to pull the trigger..."but honey, my system died...I NEED to upgrade."

 

[compudog]

You got it! :shocked: Time for that X1900XT or 7900GTX! :shocked:

 

[Peter]

On an analog VGA connection, that kind of symptom can hardly be caused on the monitor's end. It looks like a RAM defect on the graphics card.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Peter
On an analog VGA connection, that kind of symptom can hardly be caused on the monitor's end. It looks like a RAM defect on the graphics card.

I agree. I had the same symtoms when my over clocked 9800 popped out with it's cheap ram.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Well my GPU is nearly 3 years old, so it lived a reasonably long life if the symptoms definitely suggest a hardware death.

 

[akugami]

Did you check the monitor with a different monitor cable? Might be a bad cable.

 

[Starbuck1975]

I checked two different monitors with totally different cables...so I think it is safe to say that my monitors are in good shape.