Monitor Problem: Please help?

[DDK]

I have a Sony Trinitron 17" CRT that is getting towards six years old (June/July).

About two months ago I started to notice that there was a strange blurring coming from the edge of some of the icons. It was very minor so I didn't worry about it to much and besides, it's not like I could affort to fix it anyway.

However, it has gotten steadily worse until now there is a purplish streak going from left to right from all lighter coloured objects on the screen. It's beginning to make things hard to read and it distorts EVERYTHING, from images, to text, and absolutely everything on the screen up to almost two inches from the source.

I have two graphics cards available and have switched between them so I'm pretty sure it's not the graphics cards. The blur doesn't follow through into screen shots so I don't think it's software. The only conclusion I can come to is that it's the CRT phosphors or whatever.

My question, to anyone who knows, is can this be fixed or am I better off buying a new monitor?

I've been told that it can be fixed but to find out, I have to fork out $40 ($25 US) which, if it turns out it can't be fixed, is money I can ill-afford to spend. And even if it can be fixed, this guy was iffy on the price, saying that it could be up to $200 ($140ish US) which I could almost get a new monitor for.

I'm not sure I trust this guy and any other stores I've been to are rude, stupid, or tell me to buy a new one and offer me options.

Please, if anyone can help it would be most appreciated as I really can't afford to waste money on finding these things out and if the monitor goes... well, there goes most of my life...

 

[jdavis]

Sounds like it is dying to me, but I could be wrong. I do know that monitors are something for professional repairmen to work on. You can get a 17 inch monitor for under $100 so if it cost more than that to fix it isn't worth it. You could go to the Sony website and ask them. It's been a while but I am pretty sure they have hardware support on the website.

 

[MJEggertson]

Did you by chance buy new speakers, or move your existing ones? Sounds like you have a magnet too near to your monitor.

 

[Leopold]

Did you by chance buy new speakers, or move your existing ones? Sounds like you have a magnet too near to your monitor.

that could be it...try moving all the equipment away from the monitor and making sure no magnets are near it.

If that don't help, she's dying, go buy a new one. You can get a 21" monitor for around $200 nowadays...

 

[Psionicist]

Try to highlight this picture:

If it gets worse, you have "moire" problems. In the monitors settings, there should be some setting for moire reduction. Experiment with it.

 

[DDK]

There are no speaker problems...

Psioncist, I don't quite understand what you mean by 'highlighting' the image. Do you mean highlighting as I would if it were text?

Also, I've never heard of 'moire'. Is there perhaps another name for it? Temperature? Gamma? White point? Convergence?

Maybe another explanation of the problem would help.

Imagine a grey icon on a blue background. Now imagine a streak of transparent purple light, almost as if the icon were throwing a shadow. The streak goes from left to right and measures about an inch (physical) with the resolution set to 1280x1024, 75Hz (millions of colours).

When on a white background, the colour shifts and it seems only to be two brightish points of light on the right corners of the icon with a sort of trasnparent prismatic light streaking away from left to right.

 

[Psionicist]

There are no speaker problems...

Psioncist, I don't quite understand what you mean by 'highlighting' the image. Do you mean highlighting as I would if it were text?

Also, I've never heard of 'moire'. Is there perhaps another name for it? Temperature? Gamma? White point? Convergence?

Maybe another explanation of the problem would help.

Imagine a grey icon on a blue background. Now imagine a streak of transparent purple light, almost as if the icon were throwing a shadow. The streak goes from left to right and measures about an inch (physical) with the resolution set to 1280x1024, 75Hz (millions of colours).

When on a white background, the colour shifts and it seems only to be two brightish points of light on the right corners of the icon with a sort of trasnparent prismatic light streaking away from left to right.

Description of moire patterns: http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/moire_patterns.html

This can be quite problematic for new as well as old monitors. If you use Windows, go to the Shut Down box (where you can select to shut down, log out or reboot...). This window will put a half transperant image all over the screen (you usually don't think about it, but trust me it does).

If it gets worse, the problem might be related to moire. Otherwise, I think it's dying from age. 6 years is a lot for a monitor, if you use it several hours each day.