What could cause a monitor to flicker off intermittently?

[Jeff7]

This is a strange one.
Lately the image on my monitor will just vanish for a half second or so, but then come back. I was suspecting another cracked solder joint, until just now. Know this first, the monitor did this while attached to my PC. Now it did it while attached to my laptop.
Sounds like a monitor issue, right? Now for the fun part:
I was watching a video in PowerDVD, with the window in full screen mode. Then the monitor flickered again. When it came back, PowerDVD's window was no longer in full screen mode.

So what gives here? Can a screwup in the monitor somehow go back and affect the size of windows being displayed? If that's not it, well, what is going on? If it's not the monitor, and if the problem happens on two different PCs, what gives?
I wish I could test it more easily, but it does this very randomly. Sometimes it won't do it at all for a day, then it'll do it 5 times throughout the next day. Sometimes they come all at once, like maybe 3x in 20 seconds. Or they'll be spaced several hours apart.

 

[jondl]

I had a problem like this with my GF's computer that i put together for her. It was with a fx5900 i believe and i fixed it by using old drivers that were new at the time of the card's release.

 

[Jeff7]

But how might that explain the fact that it flickers when connected to two different computers?
Even then though, if the monitor is what's freaking out, how could that make a window go from full-screen to its default size?

 

[Seekermeister]

Sometimes, looking for a reason for the behavior of anything to do with a computer, or a component can be a futile task. Just be glad that you have the problem isolated to the monitor itself.

 

[CurseTheSky]

This isn't, by any chance, a Samsung SyncMaster 204B, is it?

I have that monitor, and I have very similar problems. I've tested it both on a 6800GT (PCI-E), and 8800GTX. The 6800 had far worse problems with it, but it's still annoying with the new card. The problems only occur when using the DVI cable, though.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Seekermeister
Sometimes, looking for a reason for the behavior of anything to do with a computer, or a component can be a futile task. Just be glad that you have the problem isolated to the monitor itself.

But has anyone ever heard of an occasion when a monitor malfunction causes a change in the size of an individual window? No other windows have been affected in this manner by this flickering. That's the oddest part I'm seeing in this.


The monitor is a Nokia 445Pro, with a Sony Trinitron tube.