Crashes, hangs, stutters, or display corruption
Overheating: Underclock your Video Card
If your video card crashes, hangs, stutters, or gets display corruption a few minutes after you start a game, it may be overheating. The same thing can happen when a power supply is overloaded and it overheats. Occasionally you'll run into bad chips which cannot run reliably at full speed. Your video card has two values which can be slowed down: the GPU clock rate, and the video RAM clock rate. You can underclock both of those values to see if your video card problems go away. Underclocking can be done by using programs which are normally used to overclock.
If your video card crashes, hangs, stutters, or gets display corruption a few minutes after you start a game, it may be overheating. The same thing can happen when a power supply is overloaded and it overheats. Occasionally you'll run into bad chips which cannot run reliably at full speed. Your video card has two values which can be slowed down: the GPU clock rate, and the video RAM clock rate. You can underclock both of those values to see if your video card problems go away. Underclocking can be done by using programs which are normally used to overclock.
Monitor has one tint of color
Degausing your monitor
Magnets or electrical interference can cause your display to be skewed or out of color. Most monitors have built in degausing features within the menu, on older monitors simply turn it completely off (remove the power cord) for at least one hour
Diagrams
MDA
Monochrome , text-only standard, text display at 80 x 25, Max of 720 x 350 resolution
CGA
Max of 640 x 200 (Monochrome) in Graphics Mode.
Max of 160 x 200 (16 colors) in Graphics Mode.
Max of 80 x 25 resolution in Text Mode
Max of 160 x 200 (16 colors) in Graphics Mode.
Max of 80 x 25 resolution in Text Mode
EGA
Max of 640 x 350 (16 colors, 60Hz) in Graphics Mode.
Max of 80 x 25 resolution in Text Mode.
Max of 80 x 25 resolution in Text Mode.
PGA
Max of 640 x 400
VGA
Max of 640 x 480 (16 colors) in Graphics Mode.
Max of 320 x 200 (256 colors) in Graphics Mode.
Max of 720 x 400 resolution in Text Mode
Max of 320 x 200 (256 colors) in Graphics Mode.
Max of 720 x 400 resolution in Text Mode
XGA
Upgrade to the VGA video card.
Max of 1,024 x 768 (256 colors) in Graphics mode
Max of 1,024 x 768 (256 colors) in Graphics mode
SXGA
Max of 1400x1050 in Graphics Mode
UXGA
Max of 1600x1200 in Graphics Mode
WSXGA
Supports resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels or 1600 x 1024 pixels
WXGA
Max of 1366x768 resolution
Cleaing an LCD screen
Always use a soft cotton cloth dampened with warm water and wipe either from top to bottom or side to side. Avoid using a swirling motion. If a stronger cleaning solution is required, then you can use a solution of vinegar and water. Your cleaning solution should be applied to your cloth rather than directly to your screen. Avoid using Windex or any ammonia-based cleaners as they will yellow your screen over time
GHOST / BURN
If monitors, especially older CGA / EGA monitors, are left on for long durations, the electron beams cause the phosphors to glow. If the electron guns continue to do this for thousands of hours refreshing the same images, this can cause the images to be burnt into the CRT surface causing a ghost image to appear. This image will become permanently displayed on your monitor for the duration of its life.
A resolution to this problem are screen savers, which are programs that generate a random set of images, lines or other methods of allowing the image to not remain static while the computer is not being used.
A resolution to this problem are screen savers, which are programs that generate a random set of images, lines or other methods of allowing the image to not remain static while the computer is not being used.
Cutting out screen glare
Position your computer so that the computer screen is facing away from the window. Also, be sure that you are not facing the window as well. A proper screen to window angle should be around 90 degrees
It is fine to have sunlight from outside shining in to your office. But, it is best if this light is defused by using shades or blinds. Even the use of flat paints will help reduce glare in an office
Avoid having a bright light directly above your work station. If you have such a light, try (if possible) turning that light off and use a desk lamp instead
If you are not able to avoid the glare from outside or a bright light above you (or both), you can purchase an anti-glare screen to put on your monitor screen
It is fine to have sunlight from outside shining in to your office. But, it is best if this light is defused by using shades or blinds. Even the use of flat paints will help reduce glare in an office
Avoid having a bright light directly above your work station. If you have such a light, try (if possible) turning that light off and use a desk lamp instead
If you are not able to avoid the glare from outside or a bright light above you (or both), you can purchase an anti-glare screen to put on your monitor screen
Ceramic Capacitor
Monitor becomes dim - Flyback error
Monitor flyback transformers have the internal capacitor to improve the picture quality. Without the internal capacitor the display will bend or slightly be out of shape especially at both the right and left hand side of the picture. Most flyback transformers will have ten pins at the bottom of the flyback. Each pin serves a purpose or function as part of a complete circuit.
Sometimes a shorted internal capacitor in the flyback may cause the primary winding to burn internally. The only way to test it is to use a flyback or lopt tester. Normal multimeters can't check this kind of problem.
Next is the ground,G1, and AFC winding. AFC stand for automatic frequency control and it sends a signal from the flyback to the horizontal oscillator ic to lock or synchronize the frequency of the monitor. If this afc line have problem the display will shift either to the far left or far right. There is no way you can adjust the picture to the center. The function of G1 is to pull the electrons generated from the cathode and channel it to G2 which is the screen voltage. G1 normally is negative voltage. If there is a missing G1 voltage to the picture tube the monitor display will become very bright with flyback lines across the screen and sometimes the monitor will goe into shutdown mode.
ABL (automatic blanking limiter) Refers it as contrast circuit. Normally a high ohm resistor and a shorted ceramic capacitor caused the display to become dim.
Heater pin nowadays hardly found in monitor flyback because the crt heater voltage derived from the switch mode power supply. Heater pin still can be found in television flyback. If the anode voltage is too high, x-ray protect pin will send a signal to horizontal oscillator ic to disable the horizontal drive waveform. Without drive waveform the high voltage will collapsed and protect the user from excessive x-ray generated by the abnormal high voltage. The flyback transformer will also generate high pulse ac which later convert to dc voltage as a supply voltage to certain circuit such as the vertical circuit.
Sometimes a shorted internal capacitor in the flyback may cause the primary winding to burn internally. The only way to test it is to use a flyback or lopt tester. Normal multimeters can't check this kind of problem.
Next is the ground,G1, and AFC winding. AFC stand for automatic frequency control and it sends a signal from the flyback to the horizontal oscillator ic to lock or synchronize the frequency of the monitor. If this afc line have problem the display will shift either to the far left or far right. There is no way you can adjust the picture to the center. The function of G1 is to pull the electrons generated from the cathode and channel it to G2 which is the screen voltage. G1 normally is negative voltage. If there is a missing G1 voltage to the picture tube the monitor display will become very bright with flyback lines across the screen and sometimes the monitor will goe into shutdown mode.
ABL (automatic blanking limiter) Refers it as contrast circuit. Normally a high ohm resistor and a shorted ceramic capacitor caused the display to become dim.
Heater pin nowadays hardly found in monitor flyback because the crt heater voltage derived from the switch mode power supply. Heater pin still can be found in television flyback. If the anode voltage is too high, x-ray protect pin will send a signal to horizontal oscillator ic to disable the horizontal drive waveform. Without drive waveform the high voltage will collapsed and protect the user from excessive x-ray generated by the abnormal high voltage. The flyback transformer will also generate high pulse ac which later convert to dc voltage as a supply voltage to certain circuit such as the vertical circuit.
Flyback Transformer