Monitor Problem

[Roadkill]

I have a Compaq Presario 6000, running with an Athlon 1800+, with a Gateway EV-700 CRT monitor driven on an S3 Graphics Pro Savage DDR, with XP Home.

The problem I am having is the screen shows a real bad "barrel" effect. If I change the refresh rate from 60 hertz (which is what it's at now) to 75 hertz or 85 hertz, I get a "pincushion" effect. This effect, both barrel and pincushion, shows black on both sides of the screen, about one inch wide at the centerline of the screen.

Anyone familiar with these symptoms? Hosed monitor?, bad vid card? something else?

btw, I tried running Norton anti-virus, Ad-Aware, and Spybot, all came up clean. I also tried shuting it down and restarting. ( this comp is normally on 24/7 crunching for the XPC RC5-72 Team). I do have it set up for the monitor to shut down after a few minuets of non-use.

Any help and/or suggestions is greatly appriciated!

[EvilRick]

I'd set it at the maximum supported resolution and refresh rate. Then adjust the monitor controls to get rid of the effects you're seeing.

You should then be able to adjust to lower frequencies and refresh rates w/o seeing any of the effects.

The "barrel" effect you're seeing is still a "pincushion" adjustment.

[Roadkill]

OK, tried that, had no effect. Changed it to 85 hertz and hit the monitor controls with no change in apperance.

[EvilRick]

If the controls aren't changing the effect, then I'd say it's a bad monitor. Can you try it on another PC?

[Mntsnow]

Is the monitor anywhere near another monitor or electronic "noise" source?

[Roadkill]

Mike, it sits between the cable modem and the printer, where its been since I set it up two months ago.

EvilRick, thats a good idea, I can't understand why I didn't think to do that myself. Probably brain jam due to too many 10 hour days.

I'll switch monitors and see what happens, and let you know.

[EvilRick]

You could also try adjusting the "pincushion" at each resolution and refresh rate to see if you can change at any of them.

On a side note, I remember when I first got a PC, I thought it would be smart to put a flourescent light above my monitor for some soft light at night . . . DON'T DO IT! It wasn't that bad, I thougt I had really f'd it up though.

[Roadkill]

OK, it was/is the monitor. I hooked it up to the other comp and it did the same thing. I pulled another monitor from the back room and plugged it into the Compaq and all is fine. The Gateway is history. O-well, I can't complain to much, it was a freebee monitor. Unless someone has an idea on how to fix it real cheap,(I'm not going to sink any real money into fixing a 6 year old monitor) it's going to the recyclers.
Thanks for the help, guys!