Iiyama CRT monitor problems -- horizontal bright lines.

L

Logahn

Geek Trainee
Hello.
I've got a problem which is getting worse and worse practically every week.
My monitor model is good old CRT Iiyama HM903DT and I've bought it back in 2005. Never had any problems with it until about 4 months ago when I first noticed that it started to show a very bright horizontal line 1 pixel wide at the very top of the screen. With time it became much much worse, there are many lines, especially when I just turn monitor on, they go for, practically, good 2 cm at the top (not entire screen, there's just many bright lines alongside normal pixels, but they only appear at the top part of my monitor). In 15-20 mins most of them (to date at least) disappear, but still in these 4 months I have already 3 lines that are there on screen all the time and lately I seem to be getting good 2 more, sometimes showing all time, sometimes disappearing. These lines are not white, they're just very bright. Unfortunately can't provide any screenshots, it's not software-based problem.
The only thing I could do is to shrink my monitor a bit (losing 5 mm of a viewable field atm and it's growing with more lines appearing with time, I'm affraid soon I'll have to cut it by as much as 2 cm).
After installing a new game today I had to adjust the screen in game a bit, and now I instantly got 2 more lines all of a sudden by just tweaking monitor a bit.
From other point of view... These lines do not stay in the same spot if I move my screen and windows in that certain place, they MOSTLY there, but they may appear or dissapear depending on the picture on it, hence I've been thinking, can it be not a monitor but a videocard that is causing it? Also if I shrink the screen these lines shrink too with it.
Couldn't find any posts anywhere discussing that problem, it's like I'm the only one having it at all.

P.S. Sorry for my English, but I can't describe the problem any better.
 
Do you have another monitor or video card you could try in your computer to see if one of those is causing the problem? That would be the fastest way to tell if it was one or the other. You can also try to reseat the video card on the system board to see if maybe it has come loose. Also, reseat the video cable to the video card and to the monitor as well. You can also try maybe changing the refresh rate on the monitor to see if that makes a difference.
 
I don't have other minitor/videocard.
I did check all connections, I even cleaned whole videocard but it didn't really change much, lines still here, but there were 1-2 less of them for the first few hours, then they appeared again as usual (even though one game that was lagging alot before stopped doing so after cleaning).
Switching screen resolution/frequency does affect lines. And in a very random manner in fact. For example my usual resolution is 1152/864 100 hz. Switching to, for example, 1280x960 60hz removed lines completely. At 100hz it gave me very few lines at the very top (less than usual). Same with 1600x1200. But 1152x864 60hz still gives lines. 1024x768 has lines at 100hz but no lines at 60hz.

Edit: one more thing I've noticed. If I open a small window atop of a desktop, lines move 1 pixel up. If I close that window they go back. Kinda weird, but does that means that minitor pixels ain't actually broken, and it's a videocard issue? I mean if it was a monitor they'd be same lines, always brightened out every time in same place?
 
I read a review for the monitor on TomHardware.com that said "In practice, most modes (800x600 to 1920x1440) are predefined and work optimally at 85 Hz". Maybe try it at that frequency (85hz) and see how it does. With a CRT monitor, there is a gun shooting rays at the screen, so I dont think problem lines would always appear in the same place unless something was wrong with the coating on the glass. The gun is shooting the rays up and down left and right, whereas on a LCD monitor the pixel is locked in place essentialy on the screen so if there is a dead one, its always in the same spot. Its hard to determine what could be causing this without being able to swap out the video card or the monitor with known good ones. Maybe a friend could let you try their monitor just to test and see at some point? It would definitely help to diagnose what the root cause is. :)
 
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