[Question] Screen's acting weird

So, PatrThom, err, I mean, everybody :p, I have an issue.
Since a few days (but I was gone so I was hoping it'd solve itself in the mean time), the left side of my screen has more visible pixelation and a serious red tint to it. The right's perfectly ok.
I assumed it was a connector or the cable, but right now it's plugged in through a HDMI cable, and it used to be connected through a DVI cable and a VGA convertor (by the way which is better?:p). In both set ups the problem persists. I rolled back my graphics card drivers to an earlier version (I updated them a few days ago; not right before the issue started but who knows). Still the problem persists.
Since I don't have another monitor lying around - how do I proceed? I don't feel like buying either a new monitor or a new graphics card if it isn't necessary, obviously :p. What else could it be?
 
When this happens it's most frequently a monitor fault, and the only option is factory repair or replacement. Your monitor may have built in diagnostics you can perform with nothing connected to view the red, green, blue, white, and black screens by themselves. If the problem still exists, it's definitely the monitor. If it's under warranty, get it replaced, if not you'll have to decide if it's worth replacing yourself or not - repair is probably going to be more expensive than replacement unless it's a high end monitor.

If the diagnostics shows no problem, try it out with your bluray player or another HDMI device and see if it persists. If it goes away, your video card or drivers might be faulty.

But it's probably the monitor.

HDMI and DVI are essentially the same, and both are better than VGA. Displayport is better than HDMI and DVI, but only in terms of bandwidth, which translates to higher resolutions, faster refresh rates, or a combination of the two. For most monitors HDMI and DVI are more than sufficient.
 

Dave

Staff member
This happened to me with a monitor and I wasn't able to fix it. I had to get a new one. And by get a new one I mean I took the one my son was no longer using and made it my own.
 
So....Started a game just now. Turns out what seemed to be a red shift, is, in fact, some type of burn-in image. More specifically, the Halforums URL and browser bar :D. It didn't look like this on a white or more colored background, but on black it's easily noticeable. Pictured: the Hadow of Mordor (no s-es, right?) menu. I swear, my screen goes to sleep after 30 minutes or so of inactivity and I really do occasionally do something else wit this PC, besides read this place.

DSC08426.JPG DSC08425.JPG
 
Second the notion of it being the monitor.

If you want to try and massage out any burn-in, you can run a color wash screen saver to shake your pixels loose again.
Personally, I do NOT recommend physically massaging your screen unless you are one step away from replacing it anyway.

--Patrick
 
Look, I'm not condoning techual relations, but if you are going to experiment, be safe and use protection. If the monitor starts to bulge you'd better run...
 
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