Any way of checking/confirming a faulty monitor?

The Darkness · 9 May 2006 at 08:30

I have a vertical band on my monitor, slightly lighter than the surrounding colours. Its not always there, but when I capture a screenshot when it is there, the line doesnt show up on the screenshot. Someone on the graphics card forum suggested this meant it was a monitor issue.

The monitor is fairly new (phillips 20 widescreen one) and I was wondering if there is a diagnostic tool available anywhere to check this?

Any help appreciated,

Cheers

SteveOBHave · 9 May 2006 at 08:52

The Darkness said:
I have a vertical band on my monitor, slightly lighter than the surrounding colours. Its not always there, but when I capture a screenshot when it is there, the line doesnt show up on the screenshot. Someone on the graphics card forum suggested this meant it was a monitor issue.

The monitor is fairly new (phillips 20 widescreen one) and I was wondering if there is a diagnostic tool available anywhere to check this?

Any help appreciated,

Cheers

Unfortunately if this is a monitor issue any diagnostics would have to be carried out by and external tool as the monitor would not 'know' that it had an issue.

As for what is causing the issue, it can be a number of things, including your video card. Things to check would be the VGA cable, giving the connectors small 'jiggle' and also try swapping it to another computer if this is available. If not, does your video card have a second port? Try that.

Check the Pixel Clock and Phasing also, look up the recommened settings for your monitor and check yours against these.

Due to the nature of LCD TFT monitors, i.e. they're all active matrix these days, such a fault is indicitive of the signal getting to the LCD rather than a fault with the LCD itself. Unfortunately this could well mean that a connector has come loose inside the monitor itself. Hopefully it is under warranty still?

All else failing, call Phillips helpline on 0906 1010 017 - but they kindly charge you £0.15 /min... nice of them that.

Hope this helps

The Darkness · 9 May 2006 at 09:30

That helps a lot - many thanks for the reply. I'll try to work through some of your suggestions tonight. I'm connected by DVI but my video card has two DVI-outs so I'll try the other one.

The Darkness · 10 May 2006 at 13:57

Tried all of the suggestions - different graphics card, DVI cable, different drivers (for both card and monitor) and problem persisted. Seems I have a dud - not many reports of faulty ones on the web so I'll try another one of the same model. Phillips will replace it. Thanks for the help,

Cheers