Computer monitor problem

18 years ago

I have an old Compaq 5017m LCD monitor. I know it's old, and I should probably upgrade, but right now it's really not in the budget, and so I hooked up my old 17" CRT monitor for now, which takes up 1/3 of my desk!

Anyway, back to the problem. I was using the computer this afternoon, and got up to leave for about 5 minutes. When I came back, my screen was black, although the power light on the monitor was still green. No matter what I did, I couldn't get a picture back, so I figured it locked up and rebooted it.

The "COMPAQ" boot screen came up for two seconds and the screen went black again. The screen flipped between a black and a dark gray every few seconds. I turned the monitor off, turned it back on, and had a picture... for about two seconds again, then it went black.

That's all the monitor does now... display a picture for two seconds, and go black. If I cycle the power, it works, but only for two seconds.

My thought it the power supply. Of course, it uses a typical 12V, 3.33A supply which I cannot simply test by plugging in another cord. I see eBay has them cheap, but I want to know if the power supply is a pretty good bet before I do. Thanks in advance!

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Comments (5)

owbist
18 years ago
I think I might look at the video card or onboard video before the monitor. When you were getting thee short bursts of picture was the on/off button constantly lit? If so you could assume a constant supply of power.

Do you know much about the innards of the computer? Like whether this is onboard video or a separate video card? If it is either you could buy a cheap video card to put in there once you have determined whether the slot available is PCI, AGP or PCIe

Not sure? Download and run Gabriel Topala's SIW and it will tell you everything that is inside your case. It is a free program. Click the Download button on the blue bar NOT that big black advertisement. You can then download the standalone version that does not even have to be installed. Double click on the program and off you go.

Here is a link that might be useful: System Information for Windows
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
18 years ago
do you happen to have another pc that you can try the monitors on to see if it is the monitor or not? like a laptop perhaps?
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criticalmass048
Original Author
18 years ago
Thank you both for the quick responses!

owbist: I have an NVidia GForce4 card. I also have my TV hooked up to the composite output. My TV was (and still is) displaying a picture. When I hooked up my old monitor and rebooted again, everything worked just fine.

ravencajun: You know, I didn't think about that. I can hook my monitor up to my wife's laptop! Good thinking! I'll get back to you...
criticalmass048
Original Author
18 years ago
No, I just tried it with my wife's laptop, and I get the same problem, so it's definitely either the monitor or the power supply.
jemdandy
18 years ago
You may have a driver mismatch to the monitor. Try this:

Boot up in the safe mode. That mode loads only the essential software to operate the computer and loads a low resolution, generic monitor driver. Does your monitor oepeate in this mode? If so, you may be on the path to a cure. Change the monitor driver to one that suits your monitor, then reboot.

After you get it working again, check to see how the sleep modes are set.

Before you change the driver, record the one that is current. You may wish to return to return to it.

**************************
A tip for future reference:

Before changing monitors, set the driver to the low resolution VGA mode, 640 x 480 pixels. Change monitors and then change to a driver one that matches the replacement monitor.
**************************

I see another possible problem and that is your old monitor may not be plug-and-play. The later versions of Windows do plug-n-play while booting. It attempts to interrogate your monitor and if it gets a return of garbage, it may act on it if it isn't smart enough to know this is not a plug-n-play device.

I ruined a monitor once when I first installed Windows 95. I had a video card that had the capablity to output a wide range of driving voltages to the monitor's sweep circuits. However, it was not a plug-n-play device. Windows set the card to the wrong voltages and overdrove the sweep circuits. The monitor lasted about 5 minutes.

Lets us know how it turns out. If the monitor does not operate in the "safe mode", there is something more wrong - could be the monitor, or could be the video hardware /circuits.

Computer monitor problem

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owbist

ravencajun Zone 8b TX

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owbist

ravencajun Zone 8b TX

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