Blinking Monitor

I've got a Dell UltraSharp 1901FP...I've only had it for about a year, it has a crystal clear image and has been working great....buuuut....

Just about a week ago I noticed it started doing something a little funny - All of a sudden it will just randomly decide to blink - Like it's refreshing the screen or something - It'll go black for a second, then the image will come back...

I tried lowering the refresh rate, but that didn't seem to help much...

Any ideas me amigos?

I have an UltraSharp 1800FP... it does the same thing... but rarely. I have no idea what's causing it. My video card is a Radeon 9700... I've had the whole computer since 2003... and it's not an extreme annoyance. It does it mostly after I come back from screensaver or something like that.

If it's bugging you... contact Dell on their support place... support.dell.com...

[STAY COOL)
-prophetmike

Very interesting....Now I know I'm not alone....hehe

I've got a GeForce FX 5200, so I guess since you've got an ATI, it must not be an issue with the graphic card....Which kind of pisses me off, b/c I've been looking for a good excuse to buy a new 256MB card I wouldn't put it in this hunk of junk I've got now though...I've stripped this Compaq clean of its original equipment, save the lousy motherboard that it came with which is choking the rest of my performance...

I seem to have the most problems with this issue at startup....But I usually leave my computer running for days at a time, of course the monitor is off when it's not in use...

I've had some serious issues in the past with Dell's customer service competency level *sighs* I'll save that as option C....

Interesting new development....

Now I can't watch movies...

Audio files in any player I use work fine, but if I got to watch a news clip or a movie trailer, the computer freezes up, the monitor does its blinking thing again, and then the monitor goes black and my green status icon goes orange and I'm forced to power down...

Bad video card?? Virus?? What do you guys think?

I’m ready to scrap this hunka-junk....My plan was to get an external hard drive with one of those push-of-a-button back ups and just transfer any needed files over to my future PC when necessary….Bad idea – good idea?

When it does its blink, do you "hear" it, as if it were a shock of electricity?

Misfit

I had a similar issue with a 5900le. it was a sign the cards procssor was going. I am not saying it is absolutly the issue, but.....
I never had a ati 9700, so i don't know if they had similar issues. if you access to another vid card try it. another issue-what resolution, refresh rate are u running. does the issue only happen under a certain game for example?

Originally posted by Misfit
When it does its blink, do you "hear" it, as if it were a shock of electricity?

Misfit

I'm glad you asked that question...

Me and prohetmike have been discussing this issue via u2u and it prompted me to try playing a saved video versus a buffered feed...which is what has been causing my problems...

I tried watching Will Farrell’s cow bell skit…lol…Got about 30 seconds from the end, after having watched however many minutes that is – when by that point I’d usually be rebooting – and then I got a blue screen and was only able to catch the words “beginning jump” down at the bottom before it rebooted…

Right before it rebooted, in between the blue screen and the rebooting, there was a buzzing electircal sound...

Edit: Note - This sound did not come from the monitor but the speakers...

mrmonsoon
I had a similar issue with a 5900le. it was a sign the cards procssor was going. I am not saying it is absolutly the issue, but.....
I never had a ati 9700, so i don't know if they had similar issues. if you access to another vid card try it. another issue-what resolution, refresh rate are u running. does the issue only happen under a certain game for example?

I do have an older video card, and I may switch them out to see how what results I get...

My resolution is 1280x1024 and the refresh rate is 75...Is that a bit too high? I'm prone to get headaches if it's set to low...

I haven't been playing many games on my PC (or any console for that matter) lately, but for the sake of experimentation, I'll give it a shot and see what happens...


[edit on 9/8/2005 by EnronOutrunHomerun]

Glad the noise is speaker related. I forget the name of the part [WAY oddball name, to say it one would think "ya, right"] that starts the meltdown I speak of [which does cause an internal short over time til death], but they are hard to come by [hence my Triniton sitting in the garage].

Do you have another machine you can put that monitor on, to see what happens? This could save LOTS of time if it does the same thing on another machine - 2 machines / one blinking monitor = bad monitor.

For sake of troubleshooting, I would start with lowering the res to 1024, 75hz should be ok.

Also, I would go ahead and reinstall the vid drivers. Best way of that is a clean install - unsinstall the current vid drivers and reinstall, as opposed to upgrading/replacing with latest version.

nVidia Drivers

Assuming you are not on Win98, does your Windows Event Log show anything?

Might be worthy to feel the heat-sink on the video card, perhaps it is getting overheated being an older card yet trying to "keep up" with the demands of modern video processes. If your card has a fan on it, make sure it is functional and CLEAN!! If no fan, start an app/game/vid that demands heavy video functions, gently touch your finger to the heat-sink ONLY, if your reflexes instantly jump your finger from it, it is too hot - a simple retail no-frills CPU fan attached to it will do wonders.

Misfit

I'm not sure of your tech level, so I thought I should come right back and add this.

If you decide to feel the vid card for heat, make sure to either
[1] wear a grounding strap,
or
[2] KEEP one hand holding the case of the PC.
Failture to do this can result in a very dead machine.

Also, touching the vid card is just that - just a touch - no pressure to be placed on it.

Misfit


[edit on 8-9-2005 by Misfit]

If others are having similar problems with similar monitors, I would contact Dell. I had a monitor that would just throw a yellow filter over everything every once in a while, then it would go away. I tested it on several computers to discover that it was the monitor and not the computer, then contacted Dell. Since it was still under warranty, they just replaced it.

Contact Dell, it may be a design flaw. As to your video feeds dying in blue screens of death, that's an OS problem or a Media Player problem. Be sure you have all of your security updates, and you may want to try uninstalling Windows Media Player and reinstalling it again (you can get it off of Microsoft's website).

If you're using a different program when that happens and have gotten any Windows updates, you may want to uninstall it and reinstall it. Every time I've gotten a Windows update, my Interactual player is no longer my default program (Media player is) for playing DVDs, and the installation is corrupted. I'm sure it's not intentional, since Microsoft is into fair business practices

If all else fails, try bringing your monitor to a friend's house and see if it does it there. Don't replace your video card unless you've ruled out all other possibilities. Those things are expensive! However, they do go out easily and interface directly with your computer, so that may be the problem with your crashes.

You might also want to check out GeForce's website and see if there are any FirmWare updates to download. Could just be a bug in the video card's programming that's crashing and screwing with your system, though it doesn't sound like it's the cause of your flicker.

Mine isn't a Dell, but it does the same thing. It randomly turns yellow for a few seconds, then goes back to normal and works just fine. But every so often I suddenly hear *CLICK* and it reboots. I can't complain though, it was a free 21 inch monitor.

Yikes....I went a bit too long without an update, didn't I....lol

Well - Turns out it was simply thr driver...So it was a quick and painless fix!

Of course, as soon as my video began working, that exact moment (I kid you not) my sound stopped....

Updated my sound-card driver...Problem fixed...

Lesson learned

Woohoo!

Congrats! Enjoy a new world of non-blinking interweb devouring!