Screen jitters!

[Looney]

I have the Sony GDM-FW900, and there is a noticeable jitter. But the thing is, it only jitters at the desktop... in games, it's perfectly fine, even at 1920x1200 resolution. Is this due to EMI? If so, why would it not jitter in games then?

 

[boyRacer]

:Q That's one hell of a monitor you got there... 😀 ...what kind of video card do you have? Sometimes i get the jitter on my LCD when installing Windows... after i install the drivers and set the right resolution it goes away... only happens with ATI cards though. Some say you could play around the AGP driving value in the BIOS to correct it... but don't quote me on that... i never had to do it. 🙂

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: boyRacer
:Q That's one hell of a monitor you got there... 😀 ...what kind of video card do you have? Sometimes i get the jitter on my LCD when installing Windows... after i install the drivers and set the right resolution it goes away... only happens with ATI cards though. Some say you could play around the AGP driving value in the BIOS to correct it... but don't quote me on that... i never had to do it. 🙂

I'm using a Hercules Radeon 8500LE atm. I'll try fooling around with the AGP driving value then, thanks.

 

[boyRacer]

Since you have an ATI maybe you should try the forums over at rage3d to see if you can get any answers there before you play around with it... the wrong setting can leave you with a blank screen and then you'd have to reset your CMOS all over again. 🙂

 

[PowerMacG5]

Maybe try to either lower, or raise the refresh rate. When using some CRT's at school, I notice a lot of them jitter, until I play with the refresh (I hate those monitors, headaches galore).

 

[Looney]

Yeah, i've tried rage3d, they had no clue... and yes, i've tried different resolutions and refresh rate. Certain resolution does remove the jitter, but i want to take advantage of my monitor, so i need it to be 1920x1200.

 

[psteng19]

I think it's EMI.

In my situation, it happens when I plug it in to the same power lines as the kitchen, and when certain kitchen appliances are on.
Strangely enough, it happens only during in the Windows desktop (MS Word, IE, etc.) but is fine in games (2D included - starcraft).

When I first noticed it, I thought my monitor was going bad... it would happen intermittently.
So I swapped in another monitor but when that didn't help, I thought it was the location, a magnetic field near it or something.
But no matter how far away I moved it from that position (plugged into the same outlet), the shaking would still happen.

Finally realized it happened mostly when the microwave was being used 😛

Anyone know of any fixes?

 

[Jeff7181]

You can get a filter type of thing for your power outlet... it plugs into the wall, then you plug your crap into that... check Radio Shack or a similar store. Also, top of the line UPS's do the same thing... so that's another option.

 

[Looney]

Yeah, i'm thinking it's EMI... i'm torn between whether i should get a Line Conditioner... or getting a Smart UPS with Line Interactivity... does anybody know which does a better job of cleaning up the EMI?

And yes, i'm pretty sure it's EMI in my case too. We've got literally 10+ refridgerators and freezers running out of the house/store, so i'm not surprised that my line is dirty. Thankfully i have an LCD that i use for normal computer usage, and the FW900 is pretty much just for gaming... but i'll like to remove the jitter though if possible... so i can use it for other stuff other than gaming... and it can't be good for the monitor to jitter like that.

 

[Jeff7181]

I don't know which would be better... one would think a Line Conditioner that's designed for that would be a better choice... but then again, one might think something designed for sensative computer equipment might to a better job, since the line conditioner may be designed to clean it up just enough so you don't get lines on your TV screen.

 

[Looney]

That's what i figured... that a line conditioner would probably be better since that's their sole function. I've noticed that recording studios use them to clean up their lines for production. But then, if i'm right in how the Smart UPS cleans up the lines... by converting the DC of the battery back to AC, it should in theory be much cleaner than a line conditioner which does the cleaning up on the fly. But this is all speculation on my part, i really am not sure how it all works. I just wished i knew somebody with a Smart UPS that i could borrow and test with.