Computer people- need some help, please.

[phalaeo]

Hi folks- All of a sudden, I have a red line down the height of my monitor. It's one pixel in width. This happened within the last hour- I do keep my computer running during daytime hours, but I have a screen saver that pops up if I'm not using it.

Anyone have any suggestions as to what caused this, and how can I fix it/prevent it?

Thank you!

[AZgreentea]

So you have a line like an I down your monitor? It could be a lot of things, like a bad control board in the monitor or maybe part of the monitor was damaged physically. Think of it as a really bad dead pixle. If your monitor is not under warranty, I dont know of any way to fix it. Monitors aren't really fixable like the rest of a computer, unless you know a lot about electronic repair. Even then, it might be cheaper to replace the thing.

You can try some things like verifying you dont have a bad cable/connection. Try it on a different computer (with a different cable) to see if its your graphics card. Some monitors have test or adjustment functions built in that can sometimes kick a dead (or stuck) pixle back to life.

**EDIT
I suppose I should ask the make and model of your monitor.

[sebastianosmith]

Well,

It's either the vid card or the monitor. Now that the obvious is out of the way...

Check your vid cable connection. This problem can be caused by one of the pins being barely in or out of contact.

Re-seat your vid card. Sometimes thermal creep will force it to rise out of the slot. While this is rare, it's easy to check.

Swap the monitor. If the problem persists, get a new vid card. If it goes away, your monitor has a bad cap or resistor and will probably cost more to fix than replace.

Good luck.

Oh, one more trick if it's a CRT. Whack it hard on the side. Really. Sometimes that will temporarily fix the problem but you'll still need to have it repaired or replaced.

[Beld]

had some larger monitors at work do the same thing only the line was green. Typically this means the other two colors have ceased to function for the pixel(s) that are one color.

Sometimes you can turn the monitor off for a while and then back on, but usually once you have seen the problem, this is a temporary fix and the line will return.

You can also see if the monitor has a 'reset' function, occasionally, I have seen LCD monitors that get a bad synch signal exhibit similar behaviour and were 'fixed' by using the monitor 'reset' menu command, you can also try to set everything back to 'auto' if you have manually adjusted color/contrast/brightness settings.

Good luck and hope you get back to playing soon.

[Winter_storm]

Pretty much everything that was said above. But always do the easiest thing first.

Remove the monitor cable from both ends (carefully) and look at the pins and make sure they are straight and none are pushed in farther than the rest. (I am assuming you have a VGA (blue) not a digital cable (White). if anything looks like described try changing the cable or borrow one from a friend to see if it works before buying a monitor cable.

Second thing after properly putting back on the vga cable reset the monitor to default. if nothing go down to third

third when you put back on the monitor (VGA cable) and tighten it up while the computer and monitor is on wiggle the monitor cable if this the makes changes it possible a graphics card or a shorted out monitor cable.

fourth turn off the computer and leave on the monitor on, access the menu. Is the line still there? if it is the its the monitor and has been pixelized.

fifth if not attach it to a different computer and see if the effect is still there. if so then its the monitor.

sixth if all above is not true then it might be bad capacitors on the motherboard. Discoloration or lines is one of the effects of this....

After this point need to call a tech, don't try it on your own.

Hope this helps

[phalaeo]

Erm... well here's an update. It seems unlikely (at least to me) that it is a straightforward monitor error. Fiddling around on different websites, I'm finding that it will extend from the top of the browser window straight to the bottom,... but here's the kicker- On certain sites it continues uninterrupted from top to bottom, and on sites with blocks of white, it does not continue through the white portion. I will check on everyone's questions at some point tonight, and thanks for the preliminary help/opinions. I wish I could describe it better. :/

If it helps any, I have a new graphics card (within the past 6 months). The Monitor is a flat-screen HP, I've had it for about 3 years. The fact that it's skipping over white blocks of background on certain websites seems to be a clue that it's not just a ****-out, but that's just my own deductive logic- I'm certain to find better advice amongst everyone here.

It seems as though I might need to ask my fiance where to find some of these things that have been asked about, and he's asleep. I will do my best to get answers up here asap.

[Autolycus]

In addition to what everyone above said you could try running a "pixel tester" to check for stuck or dead pixels. Here's a link. However, I would think the odds of a perfect vertical line of dead pixels makes this highly unlikely. I initially thought it might be a heat problem, but that also seems unlikely.

Good luck.

[Phemt81]

Oh, one more trick if it's a CRT. Whack it hard on the side. Really. Sometimes that will temporarily fix the problem but you'll still need to have it repaired or replaced.

LOL good one! +1

Oh, you weren't serious... right?

99 times over 100 is a monitor issue. Burned pixels are way hard to fix though.

[Celastelin]

One quick and dirty test, I'd try restarting the pc, and watch and see if the line stays on during the entire restart. If it does it is more than likely a monitor issue. The best test is to bring up the monitors menu and see if the line goes over it, if it does, again, monitor issue. Let us know how you make out

[thakorian]

Erm... well here's an update. It seems unlikely (at least to me) that it is a straightforward monitor error. Fiddling around on different websites, I'm finding that it will extend from the top of the browser window straight to the bottom,... but here's the kicker- On certain sites it continues uninterrupted from top to bottom, and on sites with blocks of white, it does not continue through the white portion. I will check on everyone's questions at some point tonight, and thanks for the preliminary help/opinions. I wish I could describe it better. :/

If it helps any, I have a new graphics card (within the past 6 months). The Monitor is a flat-screen HP, I've had it for about 3 years. The fact that it's skipping over white blocks of background on certain websites seems to be a clue that it's not just a ****-out, but that's just my own deductive logic- I'm certain to find better advice amongst everyone here.

It seems as though I might need to ask my fiance where to find some of these things that have been asked about, and he's asleep. I will do my best to get answers up here asap.

Would seem that the problem is with your monitor. There is a fault somewhere along the line of the chip controlling the transistor matrix on your lcd, to any of the transistors along the line. Apparently the red column is always on at maximum, but the associated green and blue columns still correspond to their right values, hence, you'll see every color on along the column as red or red-tinted. When there is white, the green and blue columns compensate, so white should look okay.

To be quite honest, it might be cheaper to buy a new one than to fix this one. To be sure of the quality of the problem, I would suggest trying the monitor on another computer.