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For
a healthy monitor, quit leaning on the degauss switch so
often. Only press it if your monitor has color purity
problems. If one try doesn't work, adjust the color/purity.
Too much degaussing can age your monitor prematurely. (Newer
monitors automatically degauss themselves at power-up --
listen for a bong-like tone. If your monitor needs
degaussing, and it has no degauss switch, just turn it off
and turn it back on.) If you see distinct different-color
lines, get a new monitor. If the picture occasionally
trembles, check for a virus -- the Tremor virus does just
that. Monitors don't like nearby magnetic fields, either.
Keep clocks and other appliances with electric motors or
that use a lot of electricity away from your monitor. Even
power lines behind the walls can cause problems; try moving
your monitor away from the wall to see if that corrects
display problems. If you have a strong red, yellow, or blue
tint to your picture at all times, one of the conductors in
your VGA cable is severed. Get a new monitor cable. If your
picture is way smaller than your screen, you've got your
resolution set too high. Try resetting the resolution back
to 800x600 or even 640x480. Electronic devices sitting too
close to your monitor such as a printer, another monitor,
etc, can cause magnetic field distortion. Move 'em at least
a foot away. Some monitors, particularly Trinitrons, are
quite sensitive to vibration. Owners of these monitors want
to keep them away from mechanical vibration, and keep the
kitty off the box. If your picture is crooked, you need
major work done. Go fuss at your dealer. A flickering screen
is caused by a too-low refresh rate; different monitors and
video cards have different ways of resetting refresh rates,
but you need to set it above 70 per second. If it gives you
the choice between "interlaced" and "no interlaced"
configurations, go with "no interlaced," since interlacing
is a fancy way to say that the electron guns are "cheating"
by painting the screen first with the odd-numbered lines and
then with the even-numbered lines, instead of simply
redrawing it from top to bottom every time. (Why make
interlaced monitors? They're cheaper because they demand
less precision and less speed, and thusly can use less
expensive components.) If your screen has wavy patterns (moire
patterns), select a lower resolution. Convergence is another
factor. Convergence simply means that the three electron
beams must hit each pixel precisely, or converge on it. Bad
convergence means that the pixels will be only partially
illuminated, resulting in fuzzy images. A good way to test
the convergence is to run a word processing program and
scrutinize the quality of the typeface on screen. Another
way is to load a familiar graphic and examine it, or to look
closely at white lines on a black background. (MS-Paint is
useful for drawing test patterns.) If you see a band of
another color along the line, the monitor may not reproduce
small objects (like characters or small icons) well. If it
is blurry, particularly in the corners or in highly detailed
areas, you may have a convergence problem. Unless the
monitor allows you to adjust the convergence, don't try to
fix this problem yourself. Many monitors now offer lifetime
warranties on convergence; if you're buying a new one, try
to find a monitor with this guarantee.
Win
98/ME users really need a monitor driver; if you bought a
new PC with Win 98/ME installed, you've got the monitor
driver, but if you installed Win 98/ME over an earlier
version of Windows, you almost certainly do not. The good
news is that you most likely have the proper monitor driver
somewhere on your CD. And even if it doesn't, you can
usually visit your monitor maker's Web site and download a
file that does the trick. To add a new monitor driver,
right-click the desktop and choose Properties. Click the
Settings tab and then the Advanced button. Now click the
Monitor tab and the Change button. The resulting wizard will
lead you through the process of searching your Windows 98 CD
or loading the driver from a downloaded monitor .INF file.
Once the new monitor is installed, click the Adapter tab
(beside the Monitor tab) and select Optimal on the Refresh
rate drop down.
Cleaning
your monitor is no big deal as long as you avoid any
abrasive cleansers. Special wet-dry cloths are safest but
glass cleaner is OK if you make sure to rinse it off, and
wipe the screen thoroughly to avoid streaking. You
definitely don't want Windex dripping down into the bottom
of the monitor, so wipe it thoroughly.
There's
a whole crowd of video problems that aren't related to the
monitor, but instead trouble your graphics card or your
display drivers. Make sure the problem you think is in your
monitor isn't actually somewhere else. Find out if your
driver is corrupt by installing the plain-Jane VGA driver
that comes with Windows. If that driver works properly, then
your regular video driver has gone bad; reinstall a clean
copy from the installation disc, or download an updated
version.
Display
Mate 1.21, a $79 program from Sonera, bills itself as a
monitor optimizer. It uses a variety of test patterns to
help get your color, screen geometry, and convergence
running in optimal form.
You
can keep your monitor's information from being seen by
prying eyes by activating your screen saver's password. This
is an absolute password which cannot be bypassed, so if you
go this route, don't forget your password. Go through
Control Panel's Display applet, choose Screen Saver, click
the Password Protected box, click the Change button, and
type the password in twice to enable the password protection
protocol. (You can also access the Display dialog box by
right-clicking an empty area of the Desktop and choosing
Properties.) Forgot your password? Just restart the
computer. You'll get a new display and time to go back into
the screen saver to change or disable the password...which
is why the screen saver password is useful but won't keep
out anyone determined to get into your computer.
Want
your monitor to go to sleep? This not only saves energy, but
renders everything on your monitor invisible until you, or
some curious soul, reactivates the monitor by moving the
mouse or pressing a key. Go into Screen Saver as detailed
above, and click Settings under the "Energy Saving Features
of Monitor" section. You'll see the Power Options dialog
box. You can set the Power Scheme to Always (the default),
Home/Office, or Portable/Laptop. If you choose Always, which
most of you should do, you've got your choice of how long
you want your monitor to be active before going to "sleep."
Pick whatever amount of time works best for you.
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