Monitor problems D:

jp

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Since a few weeks, my monitor is acting weird when playing certain games.

My screen is getting squished vertically, I get these "black bars" on every side, same when watching wide-screen movie on TV, but instead having a black bar up and under, I have them on each side.

This is really getting annoying, and the only way to make it work normal, is to slam on the monitor with my hands, sometimes a gentle tap is enough, sometimes I nearly have to smash it with my fists, wich I won't do because I don't want to demolish my monitor.

All the cables are plugged in properly, the graphics card the latest drivers, and it does not happen anywhere but in games, programs like photoshop, word, and windows itself don't have any problem with this.

My computer specs :

P4 2 ghz
1 gig of ram.
and the important thing, in this case, graphics card is an Ati Radeon 9500 Pro 128 MB ram.

My monitor btw is a 17 inch Medion.


D: what could this mean? any help/suggestions would be apreciated.

(and please, no "buy new monitor" suggestions, coz I don't have such a big budget)
 
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Have you checked if the ingame resolution set in the game is different from your desktop resolution. Similar thing happened to me once and i run Radeon series video card too...
 
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I know exactly what you mean. I had that problem with my old monitor. I kept smacking it to fix the screen. You just keep smacking it, and it gets only worse and worse, so you have to hit it harder and harder.

Basically, the magnets that are spreading out the electrons being shot out of the back of the monitor are dying. If the magnets don't work, you get a very flat image. I don't know what else to tell you other than buy a new one.
 

jp

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@ Jariroth,

I have checked that and they are the same.

@ Optional,

Hmm, I thought something like that could be the cause, well I gues I just have to wait till it really dies.

Its strange that it only does this with a few games, never with windows, sometimes moving the plug that's in the back of the monitor works, but that's only 1 on 10.

=/ well I hope its not the mangets that are dying -_-

Anyways, thanks for your help, at least I know what I might expect.
 
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I had exactly the same problem , but after a time of slaming it remained like that without going back to normal. So i had to buy another one. I tell you it's nothing from your drivers or your video card , it's the monitor.
 
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Try degaussing it lately? Use the monitor controls and select degauss. Sometimes that helps.
 
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To me I am thinknig of 2 possible causes. Ethier your monitor is dying or your gfx card may be overheating causing your games to display possible artifacts or not render things properly. Another factor is your monitor cable may not be plugged in correctly, seeing as how you mentioned it in a later reply (screw it in if that's the case).
 
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If he smacks his monitor to fix it, it's not his video card.
 
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Optional22 said:
If he smacks his monitor to fix it, it's not his video card.
It could be the connection to his monitor, which he mentioned earlier, ethier that or his monitor is dying. I myself had the same issue at one stage and a change of gfx cards did the trick, so the problem was probably to with the vga output.
 

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Okay, an update on what I found out.

My desktop resolution is 1280x1024, and the games I play usually have that same resolution, but some games are played on a lower resolution, 1024x768, because they start to show a FPS decrease.

Now, the only games that get a "squished" screen, are the games on 1024x768.
The games that use the same resolution as my desktop don't have any problems at all.

So I thought "hey, what if I set the desktop resolution back to 1024x768?", sure, it won't look as pretty and everything looks big and ugly, compared to the previous one, but at least the games work as they should...I thought.

So I tried out, and the game (simcity4 in this case), worked fine! well, for 10 seconds that is, coz I got a squished screen AGAIN! and it wasn't just simcity this time, it was windows now too!

So, my conclusion is that I can play games fine, but they have to be on 1280x1024, same goes for my desktop and other programs.
I gues my screen isn't dead yet, but it does seem to have a problem with lower resolutions (it also did this with resolutions like 640x480).

=/ kinda sucks coz my computer isn't allways powerfull enough to run games (such as doom3 engine based games) fluid on such a high resolution -_-
 
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my guess would be the magnets, same happened to me, and every time you bang it, it will get worse later, I heard that when magnets fall or receive any damage, etc. they lose power, so bashing the screen will just make your monitor weaker, giving it a slow and painful death...I'd just maybe buy a new one unless you have a warranty which I highly doubt.
 
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donnierisk said:
my guess would be the magnets, same happened to me, and every time you bang it, it will get worse later, I heard that when magnets fall or receive any damage, etc. they lose power, so bashing the screen will just make your monitor weaker, giving it a slow and painful death...I'd just maybe buy a new one unless you have a warranty which I highly doubt.
That happened exactly to my dad's monitor for his server. Get a new one or buy a temp used one, they're pretty cheap... ;/
 

jp

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Lith said:
That happened exactly to my dad's monitor for his server. Get a new one or buy a temp used one, they're pretty cheap... ;/
Not if your budget sucks and you have to pay your own driving lessons ;/
 

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