www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

Hi Guys,

Have an annoying flicker, loads of white lines on the right hand side of the screen, but it only does it with the one monitor.

If I boot with both monitors on line neither does it.

lines on the screen are usually graphics card problem related. don't expect any normal reaction when one is on it's way out. mine was playing up for a few months and i couldn't get a definitive point where i could say it was the card. my screen would flicker and then be fine. i could play games and hammer the graphics without problem but when i loaded FF it would flicker again and sometimes lock. then it would go a few weeks without problem. the screen then started throwing lines on it so i swapped monitors and it worked 100%.
when i used to reboot i sometimes had to do it 5-8 times to get it to boot, which i couldn't understand and led me to suspect the motherboard was at fault. about 3 weeks ago or so, it went wappy and completely stopped. no bios beeps nothing. had to change the card.

I'm pretty sure it started with a software upgrade, but why doesn't it do it if I boot with both monitors plugged in.

no idea John. that's why i said i struggled, it does all sorts of weird things. one day it worked with a different monitor, the next it didn't. i couldn't get the fault to maintain itself until the card died all of a sudden.

it might not be your problem but that is where i would suspect it to be.

If I get a chance tomorrow I may swap the monitors over and just use the dell on it's own to see what happens.

Possible the monitor cable is breaking down somewhere-or driver issue

If I have more than one monitor on line it doesn't do it, would that be the case if something was breaking down.

How are the two monitors connected to the graphics card? Do they both go into VGA connections or does one monitor utilise another output (DVI-I or HDMI) ??

Some monitors have self test patterns if turned on without being connected to the computer.

If it's only since a driver update, you can roll it back from device manager (vga, I presume?) and try again. It's not unheard of for driver updates to cause problems, especially when drivers cover so many brands, makes and models. Some OEM (versions made specifically for a vendor) can be changed from the reference design to cut costs/add features which don't always play well (that that I'm saying yours is....).

Can you recreate this each time? Can you put a picture up?

BG

Both plug straight in to the same card at the back JoinerJohn.

It doesn't show on a print screen Billy, it was a my computer update not a windows update.

I'll swap the monitors over tomorrow if I get the chance.

thescruff wrote:Both plug straight in to the same card at the back JoinerJohn.

It doesn't show on a print screen Billy, it was a my computer update not a windows update.

I'll swap the monitors over tomorrow if I get the chance.

When you change them over Scruff, have a look which outputs they use. ( I suspect one may use a different type of output to the other one)
BTW,,, Which graphics card does your computer have in it?

Both the same output on the computer but they are different plugs on the monitor.

One is VGA and the other I think is DVI.

The monitor that flickers is using a DVI-D cable.

The other monitor is using VGA.

When I plug both in neither flicker

Don't you love computers.

Ok, two things happened, and I didn't notice till just now, showed better on a dark screen.

When I shut down last night. Firefox updated to 10.

This morning before I booted I pulled the DVI cable out to see what type it was, and plugged it back in.

Whatever the flicker has gone, or at least it would seem so.

Oh, and all my blooming icons got shuffled

Thats good its sorted- I had a monitor with flicker and lines so
just to test it I had a spare dvi cable and replace it and its flicker free
The g/card was an Ati radeon (sapphire)and had to search the web to get the right driver