HELP!!! My PC is crashing.

[thegrindre]

It was my monitor.
I got to thinking about all the spare parts I had left over after building this PC while riding around at Wally World.
So, after I got home I went digging through 'em and found two adapters.
I'm now back up and runnin' again

Although, Wally World didn't have it, I did pick up an onion, a couple tomatoes, and a cantaloupe while I was there.

[Blackhawk]

Good to hear it's back and working. Although your fee for my help is sharing that cantaloupe I always seem to forget to buy them when they are in season. Hopefully this monitor last longer than the last one.

[thegrindre]

Sure, come on over. I've got about a half a loaf of homemade bread we can toast to eat with it. Well buttered, of course...

My problem now is crappy graphics. All the fonts are broken, faded and just horrible looking. I'm having a bear of a time reading anything.
I've updated all my drivers for this monitor and my graphics card but can't seem to figure out the choppy jagged faded looks.

[Moggie]

Did you go from CRT to LCD? You might wanna try and see if ClearType helps you. It's a setting in Windows itself, hidden somewhere in the display options.

[Wolverine@MSU]

Your screen resolution setting may also have something to do with the jagged fonts. Do you have it set at its native resolution? If you use a smaller resolution (so that things look bigger on the screen) the upsizing/downsizing leads to aliasing that makes fons appear funny. Try setting the monitor to its highest resolution, and if text is too small you can fix that in the Properties for the desktop (or in your video card settings).

[thegrindre]

Thanks, I've been playing with all that for the past few hours but haven't been able to get it right, yet.
Everything looks like crap.
I did get the fading and broken text fixed but it still isn't a clean clear soft display. It's too sharp...

[thegrindre]

All graphics and text are far too sharp. There's no smoothing effect at anything. It's all to cut and dried.
Problem I'm having is, I can't get anything to fade or blend into anything else.

Does that make sense?

[Hawk]

Got a screen-shot?

[thegrindre]

Now, that's a hell of a question to ask me. Do I have screen shots...

Notice how sharp and defined everything is. There's no 'feeling'.

The MSTS shot shows how the textures are unblended.
There's nothing soft and smooth.

[Hawk]

Looks to me that you might have just been used to an inferior monitor before.

[Knave]

I think the difference is in the quality difference of the two monitors. The HP is a top notch unit. You chose well... And you only lost a silly inch. Please understand this isn't a slam against the first monitor. The technology used to manufacture the LCD screens has moved forward quite a bit since your first monitor was built.

You are a smart guy, you will get it figured out.

I just can't think of a recipe that calls for a onion and a cantaloupe.

[Blackhawk]

Guess I'll give my opinion as well. Most likely it's just you're now getting a more detailed/crisper/sharper image on the new LCD screen. For example if you use a new laptop versus one from 3-4 years ago you'll see the same thing. The blacks are now blacker (rather than gray) and the images are now crisper rather than the slightly fuzzy look they used to have on older LCDs.

[thegrindre]

I'm beginning to think you're right. I was able to tone it down a bit on my other monitor but can't do it on this one.
I now have a superior monitor and everything is far more distinctive in appearance.

One cool thing I forgot about. My vid card allows me to make a desktop as large as I want it. Using the mouse pointer, I can hit the right edge of the screen to pan into more desktop space.

It's gonna be hard to get used to.

I called a bunch of PC repair shops and nobody will fix a monitor. What's involved in repairing one of these things anyway? I never took one apart before, what's inside?
Has it got a bazillion volts like a CRT?

Thanks again, guys,

[Blackhawk]

Any luck with any tv repair places? They might be more experienced with LCD screens and the backlight and inverters of a LCD screen than a PC repair place. Unless both tv and PC repair places figure it's not worth repairing a monitor for the amount of time and effort it would take to diagnose the problem and repair it, which possibly might require specialized parts that vary depending on the brands.

*Fixed a typo

[Hawk]

My brother-in-law owns a TV repair shop and he won't touch monitors. He says you can buy a new one cheaper than repairing an old one.

[thegrindre]

Hi guys,
I've been doing a little research on my own and found that this monitor is a good business monitor but not for gaming and hi-def graphics.
That's why I can't tweak the resolution the way I want it.
I'm going to have to buy a better monitor. Surprisingly enough, the better monitor doesn't cost all that much more. $25-$50 or so. Not bad, IMO. Certainly much less then it cost me a couple years ago.

Wally World has a 90 day money back guarantee so, next month I'll have enough cash to really upgrade.

I'll keep you posted, for the fun of it, if nothing else.

[Gwizz]

I searched and found a patch for my sick monitor, but haven't tried it yet.

[AZ Rail Rat]

What's involved in repairing one of these things anyway?

Actually it's pretty simple Grindy. There are two methods:

1 - It get's turned in to your local electronics recycler. A few months later after it gets off the boat in the 4th world country, it sits along with our other discarded computer junk until a guy (who is probably getting cancer from breathing in all those toxic fumes as he extracts the gold and other heavy metals) gets around to your monitor. Eventually it (or some of it) makes it back to a factory in Mexico (or other 3rd world country) where it is remanufactured and sold to some 2nd world country (China?) where either Newegg or Wally World grab the now working monitor to sell back to US!


Method 2 is simpler, but takes a bit longer: You sneak it into your dumpster and after soaking a few million years in a landfill, the elements once again gather and some future earth civilization once again make a piece of crap that only lasts three years!

Not sure if Wally World or Newegg will be the distributor then though.

[Hawk]

Hey Rat. How's things going with you and the family?

I hope all is well, or as well as can be expected under the circumstances.

[thegrindre]

Hey, Rat. How ya doin?

Funny thing about both scenarios is, they are probably both true.