monitor problems

[mormess]

i have a flickering black bar over the title bar area of my screen. it's a crt monitor. could it have anything to do with a quartz crystal that is on top of it?

[moonacre]

No. Easy way to check would be to move the crystal. Any change - thought not! There are 3 likely causes: problem with your monitor; problem with your graphics card; problem with a program that uses a title bar i.e. conflicting with the windows title bar. I'd say your graphics card was most likely (either hardware or driver problems), followed by software conflicts. You'll just have to try trial and error. Start by adjusting brightness and contrast on your monitor. Then try adjusting the screen resolution and refresh rate. Then try loading the latest drivers for your graphics card. If any of these makes a difference then it probably rules out software conflicts. Then you could try closing every program running using ctrl/alt/del or booting in safe mode. If this makes a difference then it is probably software (software conflict or driver conflict). Lastly see if you can borrow a monitor from a friend. If this is OK then you've ruled out your monitor. Hope this helps.

[mormess]

many thanks for that moonacre. it did go away, a while after I moved the crystal - spooky eh? but if it does happen again I'll try everything else. I tried fiddling with all the settings though, and nothing made any difference.

[moonacre]

Well there's a first. You appear to have a quartz crystal with some pretty amazing proporties! Sure its not a magnet?