Is my monitor or video card going bad? dark screen

[rappy]

When I turn on my pc (from sleep or completely off), my monitor will be completely black, and it will slowly brighten up to "normal" after a few minutes? Not sure if it is my monitor or video card? This has been happening for a fe months now. It is a Samsung SyncMaster 204B and NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT. I do not have another monitor to swap out available at the moment. Would that be the only way to tell for sure which is the problem?

Rappy

 

[jthunderloc]

I'm betting its the monitor. I doubt the graphic output from the card would be a dim image and brighten up. My guess is the lighting element in the monitor is wearing out and it takes some time for it to warm up and reach full brightness.

try and swap out one of the items, borrow a monitor from a friend for a few minutes. If your card has S video out, try and plug it in to a TV. Unless your getting weird artifacts or crashes Id think its the monitor.

-Wes