Yikes!!! Computer savvy Duers - my computer screen keeps blinking at me

[theivoryqueen]

it's like it is undergoing electrical shocks and flinches accordingly. What do I do? Is anything serious wrong with the PC?

[sandnsea]

1. check your video connections

Make sure it's all secure and you didn't accidentally kick something loose. Otherwise, it might be your monitor, yikes!

[theivoryqueen]

3. argh, not the dread scurvy monitor

it is blinking as I type. All cables secure. if I go offline, you will know one of the squirrels inside my system has died....

[theivoryqueen]

4. argh - not the dread scurvy monitor

it is blinking as I type. All cables secure. if I go offline, you will know one of the squirrels inside my system has died.... I am also getting seriously weird error notices from DU itself.

[theivoryqueen]

7. see!!!??? The Du site told me I couldn't post - but here's two!

[sandnsea]

9. I got a weird one too

I did a search and got an error. That must be a DU thing. Is your monitor blinking literally with the typing? Or do you just mean blinking whether you type or not? Just blinking? How do you stand it?

[theivoryqueen]

18. not just when typing and only occasionally.

it's like a surge is going through the monitor, but the CPU is sluggish as well. Hmm. I do have a backup monitor if needed but would hate to interrupt much-needed DU time to connect it.

[htuttle]

2. Sounds like the anti-matter regulator is out of phase

But seriously, check the cable connection. If you can make it happen by wiggling the cable, then it's probably a bad cable/plug end.

[Don_G]

5. Maybe XP

Thinks you're cute.

[RobertSeattle]

6. Is it happening at the same time you are blinking your eyes?

Oh, sorry, thought you were George Bush...

:evilgrin:

[theivoryqueen]

8. I am going to try to shut down and see if a lil' housecleaning will fix

the problem. Fingers crossed - hope to see ya'll soon. Thanks for replies.

[Occulus]

10. this... is generally not good.

Try this: unplug your cable from the power socket and from the back of your tower and take a look at the pins. Are any loose?

Plug it back in on both ends. Turn your computer on and very gently wiggle the video cable at the point where is connects to the back of the monitor ad the point where it connects to your computer (you're looking for loose connections and broken wires in the cable itself here.)

Now for the fun part. Look carefully at where the video cable connects to the back of the computer. If you have a seperate video card (ie, NOT an "integrated" card, but a seperate physical board plugged into your motherboard), remove the case cover and gently but firmly press that card the monitor is plugged into (it'll be a crd in a slot on the motherboard itself) straight down into the slot. If it moves down at all it may mean your problem was that the video card was not completely seated in the slot on the motherboard.

I'll be billing you $40 for this. ;) (I bet you'd pay that or more at a shop for those diagnostics, by the way.)

[Occulus]

11. try this

Try this: unplug your cable from the power socket and from the back of your tower and take a look at the pins. Are any loose?

Plug it back in on both ends. Turn your computer on and very gently wiggle the video cable at the point where is connects to the back of the monitor ad the point where it connects to your computer (you're looking for loose connections and broken wires in the cable itself here.)

Now for the fun part. Look carefully at where the video cable connects to the back of the computer. If you have a seperate video card (ie, NOT an "integrated" card, but a seperate physical board plugged into your motherboard), remove the case cover and gently but firmly press that card the monitor is plugged into (it'll be a crd in a slot on the motherboard itself) straight down into the slot. If it moves down at all it may mean your problem was that the video card was not completely seated in the slot on the motherboard.

I'll be billing you $40 for this. ;) (I bet you'd pay that or more at a shop for those diagnostics, by the way.)

[Occulus]

14. wow.

I just accidentally posted twice and I can't delete either of them. Crap.

[meisje]

15. If it's a dell laptop, then it's a known problem and they won't fix it

Some LCD screens on Dell's do this, try switching your res to 640x480 does it stop? Mine does it on certain web pages with banner ads that contain percentage of red. it turns in to a strobe unless I scroll the banner off or hit the back button. Sometimes it flashes too quickly to even see the back button, so I click everywhere until I get a new page. Dell knows about it, but will not fix the problem.

[Dover]

12. I had a similar problem

When my computer would heat up the screen would begin to go in and out. After looking at several possible causes, I concluded that I needed a new monitor. It was just 7 years old....sniff

[Kagemusha]

13. Refresh rate is too low?

Check your video card settings. If your refresh rate is below 65, you have a problem - it should be 75 to 85 mhz.

This happened to me and I didn't even realize what was going on most of the time for a while.

[theivoryqueen]

16. I am back! but the problem still persists -

I am still getting intermittent screen scrambles, plus I get an error message each time I try to post to DU - although (obviously unbeknownst to the DU servers involved) my posts are still being posted. Anyone else experiencing this prob?

[theivoryqueen]

17. take back that - just got one posted via normal means.

I'd really like to know if anyone smarter than me is also experiencing difficulties.