Monitor image "vibration" - how to troubleshoot?

[ProviaFan]

Recently, my monitor, a 19 inch Philips 109B2, has been exhibiting a strange behavior in a subtle way. The image appears to "flicker," or more appropriately, vibrate; this happens (though less noticeably) even when the resolution is lower and the refresh rate is at 85Hz or above (normally I run 1600x1200@75Hz).

The problem seemed to start, as far as I know, when I moved from one house to another. I have tried turning off the lights in my room (I use one of those self-ballasted compact fluorescent bulbs that goes in an incandescent bulb socket) to make sure no weird interaction is going on there, and have even run everything from the UPS unplugged from the wall to see if it's an issue of power line interference. Other things that I have tried include reseating the video card and checking the pins of the monitor cable to ensure that they were in good order.

I don't have any other good quality video cards or monitors that I could use to test things; my other computer has a tiny, crappy monitor, and a video card with very crappy filters which make the image quite noticeably blurry at 800x600 and above. At this point, I have run out of ideas of how to troubleshoot the problem, and would appreciate any advice you all might have to offer.

Thanks.

 

[BoKingWen]

1. Try to plug the monitor to an outlet with jus the monitor, maybe it is not getting enought power?
2. Set it to lower refresh rate.
3. Try it on a different video card.
4. Your monitor is going bad?

 

[Looney]

Try enabling AGP Spread Spectrum in your bios if you can.

http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=9

 

[kylebisme]

it's an aperture grill eh? my old 17" sony does that on occasion, i just turn it off for a bit and it goes away.

 

[PremiumG]

Originally posted by: jliechty
Recently, my monitor, a 19 inch Philips 109B2, has been exhibiting a strange behavior in a subtle way. The image appears to "flicker," or more appropriately, vibrate; this happens (though less noticeably) even when the resolution is lower and the refresh rate is at 85Hz or above (normally I run 1600x1200@75Hz).

The problem seemed to start, as far as I know, when I moved from one house to another. I have tried turning off the lights in my room (I use one of those self-ballasted compact fluorescent bulbs that goes in an incandescent bulb socket) to make sure no weird interaction is going on there, and have even run everything from the UPS unplugged from the wall to see if it's an issue of power line interference. Other things that I have tried include reseating the video card and checking the pins of the monitor cable to ensure that they were in good order.

I don't have any other good quality video cards or monitors that I could use to test things; my other computer has a tiny, crappy monitor, and a video card with very crappy filters which make the image quite noticeably blurry at 800x600 and above. At this point, I have run out of ideas of how to troubleshoot the problem, and would appreciate any advice you all might have to offer.

Thanks.

Dude!! I'm having the exact same problems with my Compaq Diamondtron monitor... After i moved home from college, my monitor vibrates... sometimes really bad. I have it set on 60 Hhz now and it seems fine. Depending on the resolution and refresh rates, sometimes its really bad vibrating, sometimes its not too bad. I've tried different drivers and even replacing my video card, and upgrading my PSU. I've even tried a different monitor altogether!! Same problem though.

I think it might be the power outlet? I don't know. Maybe the outlet where I use to live (during college) was "cleaner" with less surges and spikes. That's the only other explaination I know of.

What specs are your PC?

I have this:
Abit NF7-S
Athlon XP 2100
ATI 9800 Pro

Is your setup similar? Please let me know if you found something to correct this problem. It really annoys the hell out of me.

 

[ProviaFan]

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

I'll try to address each question and clarify things which I may have left unexplained in the original post.

Originally posted by: BoKingWen
1. Try to plug the monitor to an outlet with jus the monitor, maybe it is not getting enought power?
2. Set it to lower refresh rate.
3. Try it on a different video card.
4. Your monitor is going bad?

1. The house is ancient, and my room has only one (1) outlet, so I'll have to move the computer to another room. Something that I didn't state before, however, is that the whole computer system is plugged into an UPS, which is plugged into a 25ft extension cord that is plugged into the only outlet on the other side of the room (it's set up like this because I want my computer on a particular side of the room, and also so I only need 50ft instead of 75ft worth of phone line extension cord to run from the living room).
2. I tried 60Hz, and it's hard to tell (I might be confusing the normal flicker of that rate with the vibration effect), but I think that the problem might not be quite as bad at the lower refresh rate. One thing I noticed, however, was that increasing the refresh rate (to 85Hz, 100Hz, etc. - obviously at lower resolutions, though) did not noticeably increase the effect of the vibration. If anything, it might have been the visible decrease in normal flicker (which might still be visible at 75Hz, though not badly enough to cause problems for me normally) that made the vibration appear to be less noticeable.
3. When I try it in another room, I'll go ahead and try it on the other computer, but if that doesn't help, I'd need to order a new video card (not that I'd mind; you'll understand when you see the system specs in a moment).
4. That's what I'm trying to find out.

Originally posted by: Hardcore
Try enabling AGP Spread Spectrum in your bios if you can.

http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=9

Sorry, I should have posted full system specifications in the original post. Anyway, will this work with a PCI video card?

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
it's an aperture grill eh? my old 17" sony does that on occasion, i just turn it off for a bit and it goes away.

I don't think that this is an aperture grill monitor (it doesn't have the faint lines), but it is a flat screen monitor of some kind... let's see, that leaves shadow mask or something like that, right? Turning it off for a period seems to have no effect on the issue.

Originally posted by: PremiumG
Dude!! I'm having the exact same problems with my Compaq Diamondtron monitor... After i moved home from college, my monitor vibrates... sometimes really bad. I have it set on 60 Hhz now and it seems fine. Depending on the resolution and refresh rates, sometimes its really bad vibrating, sometimes its not too bad. I've tried different drivers and even replacing my video card, and upgrading my PSU. I've even tried a different monitor altogether!! Same problem though.

I think it might be the power outlet? I don't know. Maybe the outlet where I use to live (during college) was "cleaner" with less surges and spikes. That's the only other explaination I know of.

What specs are your PC?

I have this:
Abit NF7-S
Athlon XP 2100
ATI 9800 Pro

Is your setup similar? Please let me know if you found something to correct this problem. It really annoys the hell out of me.

I'd like to think that setting it on 60Hz and forgetting it would save me from potentially having to go on a US$600 adventure (possibly having to replace video card and monitor if nothing else works), but the flicker that any monitor would exhibit at that refresh rate doesn't seem to be too effective at keeping headaches at bay.

I'll say now, since I didn't state it very clearly in the original post, that this problem is rather subtle. It bugs me to no end, but my parents don't even notice it (they wouldn't notice the flicker on a 60Hz monitor either, but I can't stand such low refresh rates).

The power outlet is a good hypothesis, and some of the suggestions that BoKingWen made touch on that possibility. I guess that's what I'll investigate first.

Now, for the system specs:

• AMD Athlon XP 1700+ at 1.8GHz
• Epox 8RDA (non-plus) NForce2 motherboard
• Corsair XMS 512MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM
• ATI Radeon SDR 32MB PCI
• Thermaltake Purepower 360 watt PSU
• DLink DFE-530TX+
• Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM "Special Edition"
• Sony 16X DVD-ROM
• Philips 12x8x36x CD-RW
• SIIG PCI IDE controller
• Iomega Zip 100 (attached to aforementioned controller)
• Floppy drive
• Generic mid-tower ATX case (problem occurs whether side is on or off)
• Philips 109B2 19 inch monitor
• APC Back-UPS 650

 

[PremiumG]

any luck trying it in another room?

 

[WobbleWobble]

I had a vibrating monitor problem at work (old building) plugged into normal outlets. I fixed it by plugging it into our emergency outlets (I shouldn't do this, but my eyes gratefully thank me).

 

[Peter]

Low frequency flicker/vibration on CRTs usually comes from magnetic fields or inductive disturbances - like when it's under a high voltage powerline, near an electrified railroad track (like mine) or heavy machinery. There is little cure, other than trying a wall outlet that's on a different circuit, or moving it to another room. If all else fails, what you can do is get a much better shielded monitor, or even a TFT. These aren't receptive to magnetic fields at all.

 

[titananandtech]

I had an apparment beside the electical room for the building and I could only run at 60Hz; which in north america is the speed at which AC switches... The only solution was to move This is a common problem in old buildings. You can also get an LCD monitor if you're stuck there.

You might be able to get away with a 120Hz refresh rate. 120 didn't quite work for me, it was almost good, but it still had a wobble in the picture.

 

[PremiumG]

you guys think getting a UPS would help since it would give more consistent power?

edit: never mind since original poster had an UPS

 

[PremiumG]

it seems 120hz works for me too... 60 and 120hz is were there is no jitteriness... So i guess it must be the house

 

[JellyBaby]

I had this problem with a tube last year. The fix? A new monitor. Same brand and model, nothing else changed on my end and the new tube is still going strong. When I was on the phone explaining the problem the tech. didn't seem too surprised. Sometimes monitors just go bad.

 

[ProviaFan]

Well, I tried the monitor in another room of the house, and the problem was not as bad. Since I didn't want the monitor there, I put it back in my room, deciding to just live with the problem for a while until I could afford a TFT with decent color rendition, such as some of the Eizo's. A few days later, I moved my desk to another part of my room (for an entirely unrelated reason) and ended up with my computer and monitor situated at a 90 degree angle (and a few feet to the side) to where they used to be. Now it seems that the problem is not nearly as bad (if it even exists at all - I can't see it now) even though the computer is still plugged into the same outlet.

Peter seems knowledgable, so he'll probably correct me on this, but AFAIK EMI does not have to be "transmitted" though a wire... it is like a field, which can radiate from one line, and affect something plugged into another line. Hence, getting a UPS will not necessarily put an end to your problems. Even then, if the problem was coming only from an outlet, you'd need a more expensive UPS that runs the computer from the battery 100% of the time (most cheaper UPSes, including mine, only power your computer from the battery if the line power fails).

 

[titananandtech]

Experiement: Have you tried walking around the room with a compass? I never did that when I lived in the magnetic field, although I wish I tried...