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Wed 26 Jan, 2005 03:52 am
Greetings,
I have an HP Pavilion (about 5 yrs old) w/AMD Athlon 833 Mhz, 128MB RAM, an Nvidia Vanta/Vanta LT graphics card, and a Samsung Syncmaster CRT monitor (about 2 years old ).
A few days ago I started seeing horizontal lines that seem to appear wherever some text is displayed. eg. the word "displayed" before the eg. appears to be typed out in a horizontal grey box that spans the width of the display area, likewise for all the lines above and below this line.
I changed the monitor to a new Dell Flat Panel monitor and it didnt change a thing. I continue getting these grey lines. So I must infer that the monitor is not the problem or both monitors new and old suffer from the same problem which is somewhat unlikely. I suspect it might be the graphics card but I am not sure about it.
What could be the reason(s) for these horizontal lines ? And how do I fix it ? Appreciate any helpful comments ! Thanks !
Since changin' monitors had no effect, odds are the fault is with the video adapter/graphics card. Do the lines show up in safe mode as well? If so, its more likely a hardware problem with the card than a driver issue.
If the display appears normal in safemode, then it might be as simple as adjustin' the gamma and/or the refresh rate, and/or checkin' and resettin'/optimizin' other display properties, or it could be a sign of impending card failure. You might try settin' your resolution to 800x600 and settin' everything adjustable to "Default" and see what happens.
One thing you might wanna try would be to go into Device Manager, uninstall the card and its drivers, then reboot and let your machine find and reinstall 'em. If you wanna give that a shot, its prolly a good idea to download and install the latest drivers for the card first - and save the download to removeable media, just to be safe.
Another thing to try - remote chance, but worth a shot - would be to physically unseat the graphics card, clean its contacts and the contacts in the board's slot, then remount it. And as long as you're already inside the machine to do that, give the puppy a good, thorough cleanin' - get rid of all the built-up dust, grime, and crud. Its amazin' what'll find its way inside a 'puter over a couple years time.
Howdy Timber
Thank you for your suggestions. Sorry for the late reply, was away.
The display was unchanged in safemode, and reinstalling the drivers didnt help either. I havent tried physically unseating the graphics card..i'll try that next.
Thanks again !
Change in graphics card fixed it.
Glad you got it sorted out. It really seemed to me highly likely to be a hardware problem. Thanks for the feedback.
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