Frequency out of range

[Bruce]

Hi,

If there's a more appropriate group to post this question, please advise.

I've got a Gateway PII, 350mHz, with integrated sound and video, and a
Viewsonic A70 17" monitor.

On occassion, especially when playing music or video, I'll get "Frequency
out of range" on the monitor, and the sytem will lock. I have to do a cold
boot to get going again.

The monitor flickers slightly unless I set it to 75mHz, which is one of the
choices on the adapter setup. I believe the range is from 60 to 90mHz.
(I'm not in front of this pc at the moment.)

Anyone know why this keeps happenning?

Sincerely,
Bruce

 

[JasonB]

Sounds like your PC is attempting to switch video mode and is choosing a
mode + frequency that the monitor can not support. It would try and
switch mode, if you're trying to play a video file full screen for
example or if you have full screen visualisations enabled in Media
Player, WinAmp or whatever you use to place audio CD's.

First of all I would double check the max frequency that your monitor
can handle.

http://www.viewsonic.com/support/crt_a70.htm shows that the Viewsonic
A70 will handle a max frequency of 87Hz at 1024x768 or 66Hz at
1280x1024. If you're pushing it at 90Hz then that'll be the problem,
you'll need to lower the frequency to something like 80-85Hz.

Secondly I would look at limiting the maximum frequency that Windows
uses so that it does not attempt to switch into a mode + frequency that
is beyond the capability of you monitor. You should be able to do this
by checking the Advanced Settings of your Video Card.

On my laptop, when I go into the Advanced Settings window I have a Tab
called Monitor. Clicking on that then displays two boxes, one called
Monitor Info and a second called Monitor Settings. In the Monitor
Settings box you can set a maximum refresh rate for your monitor. Mine
is set to 60Hz because I user an LCD monitor, you however will want to
set this to 80-85Hz as suggested above.

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Jason

 

[Dave C.]

Hi,

If there's a more appropriate group to post this question, please advise.

I've got a Gateway PII, 350mHz, with integrated sound and video, and a
Viewsonic A70 17" monitor.

On occassion, especially when playing music or video, I'll get "Frequency
out of range" on the monitor, and the sytem will lock. I have to do a cold
boot to get going again.

The monitor flickers slightly unless I set it to 75mHz, which is one of the
choices on the adapter setup. I believe the range is from 60 to 90mHz.
(I'm not in front of this pc at the moment.)

Anyone know why this keeps happenning?

Sincerely,
Bruce

My best guess would be your power supply is crapping out on you. To me, the
error message on the monitor is a red herring as it is just a side-effect of
a problem on your motherboard. If the system randomly locks up and you
(apparently) lose video and have to reboot, that would seem to suggest a bad
power supply. Good luck with this one. -Dave