Can a mobo burn a monitor?

[kanenas]

Hello.
There are some new developments on my Asus P4C800-E Deluxe problems
and maybe somebody can shed some light.
The P4C800-E Deluxe (Bios 1016) was running up to last night.
In the morning the display (Viewsonic P95F) had no signal and wouldn't
wake up so I restarted the computer.
I burned a DVD and then left the machine for a few minutes.
When I returned the monitor had no signal again (it was on) so I
restarted the machine once more.
No signal at all this time.
There's power going to the components, keyboard flashes and such, but
not even the BIOS post shows up.
Hooking up some headphones, I get no voice messages. Only a single
beep that signifies no errors.
I resetted the jumper to initialize the Bios but it didn't make a
difference.
One strange thing that was happening a minute or so after I turned the
computer on, was a high frequency sound coming from my monitor of all
places! The monitor has no built-in speaker and my audio speakers were
not connected. The sound disappeared when I switched the monitor off.
I took the graphics card I use to a shop and tried it on another
computer and it worked fine.
Back home, I tried the monitor on another computer. No signal!
I connected another old Viewsonic I had on the Asus and it worked.
Except it goes up to 800x600x32 at 70Hz. When I try at its normal
1024x768x32 the screen jumps around. The monitor supports easily
1280x1024x32 at 85Hz on another machine.
What might the problem have been?
Could the mobo mess up the signal that goes through the graphics card
and somehow destroy the monitor? Or is it a fluke that a 4-year old
monitor with no problems up to now, crashed when I started using the
Asus mobo (and the Asus V9980 Ultra which is back to the store for
replacement)?
Too many coincidences and I'd hate to buy another monitor for the Asus
to burn.
Thanks in advance for any comments.

 

[Ghostrider]

kanenas wrote:

Could the mobo mess up the signal that goes through the graphics card
and somehow destroy the monitor? Or is it a fluke that a 4-year old
monitor with no problems up to now, crashed when I started using the
Asus mobo (and the Asus V9980 Ultra which is back to the store for
replacement)?
Too many coincidences and I'd hate to buy another monitor for the Asus
to burn.
Thanks in advance for any comments.

In all probability, the monitor simply gave up the ghost. It
can happen with 4-year old monitors. The high-pitch sound is
an indication that a electrical component inside the monitor
has broken down. OTOH, if there may be a cause for "premature"
failure from the computer itself, then it would be from the
video card itself and/or the display settings applied to it.

 

[Robert Gault]

SNIP>
One strange thing that was happening a minute or so after I turned the
computer on, was a high frequency sound coming from my monitor of all
places!

Could be caused by the horizontal transformer or just a malfunctioning
monitor.

<SNIP>
Back home, I tried the monitor on another computer. No signal!

Monitor is shot!

I connected another old Viewsonic I had on the Asus and it worked.
Except it goes up to 800x600x32 at 70Hz.

So your computer and video card are working.

When I try at its normal
1024x768x32 the screen jumps around. The monitor supports easily
1280x1024x32 at 85Hz on another machine.

Could be a sign that the second monitor is going or that the video card
has been set to an incorrectly fast refresh rate for 1280x1024x32.

What might the problem have been?
<SNIP>

You might destroy a monitor by selecting refresh rates that exceed the
specs of the monitor. That's about the only way to harm a monitor in
"normal" use.

You should make an effort to determine what the refresh rates are set to
on your system and correct them as needed. It looks like you need a new
monitor but if you expose it to excessive refresh rates, you could
damage it.

 

[Paul]

Hello.
There are some new developments on my Asus P4C800-E Deluxe problems
and maybe somebody can shed some light.
The P4C800-E Deluxe (Bios 1016) was running up to last night.
In the morning the display (Viewsonic P95F) had no signal and wouldn't
wake up so I restarted the computer.
I burned a DVD and then left the machine for a few minutes.
When I returned the monitor had no signal again (it was on) so I
restarted the machine once more.
No signal at all this time.
There's power going to the components, keyboard flashes and such, but
not even the BIOS post shows up.
Hooking up some headphones, I get no voice messages. Only a single
beep that signifies no errors.
I resetted the jumper to initialize the Bios but it didn't make a
difference.
One strange thing that was happening a minute or so after I turned the
computer on, was a high frequency sound coming from my monitor of all
places! The monitor has no built-in speaker and my audio speakers were
not connected. The sound disappeared when I switched the monitor off.
I took the graphics card I use to a shop and tried it on another
computer and it worked fine.
Back home, I tried the monitor on another computer. No signal!
I connected another old Viewsonic I had on the Asus and it worked.
Except it goes up to 800x600x32 at 70Hz. When I try at its normal
1024x768x32 the screen jumps around. The monitor supports easily
1280x1024x32 at 85Hz on another machine.
What might the problem have been?
Could the mobo mess up the signal that goes through the graphics card
and somehow destroy the monitor? Or is it a fluke that a 4-year old
monitor with no problems up to now, crashed when I started using the
Asus mobo (and the Asus V9980 Ultra which is back to the store for
replacement)?
Too many coincidences and I'd hate to buy another monitor for the Asus
to burn.
Thanks in advance for any comments.

I did a search on Google and this monitor is not that old. That
means it benefits from being a multisync monitor, with protection
against scan rate overrun. That means a small circuit is included
in the monitor, that monitors the H,V, and refresh rates, to
make sure that the monitor circuitry can handle them.

In the beginning, there was the fixed rate monitor. Then came
multisync, but without protection. People would routinely blow
these, by using a refresh rate that caused the drive circuitry
to overheat. Finally, the current generation of full featured
multisync monitor appeared, and these have provisions to measure
the parameters fed down the cable. The monitoring circuit shuts
down the sweep circuit, if the video signal is running too fast
or too slow. It would take some pretty screwed up video signal
(i.e. one that is screwy enough to fool the monitoring circuit,
yet fry the drivers in the monitor) to damage the monitor. In
short, it isn't very likely to happen.

Still, if the monitor designer doesn't put enough design margin
in the circuit, the monitor can be spec'ed to do, say, 1600x1200
at 150Hz, when it really is not capable of it. I found this one
report of a premature failure of a P95F, and there may be
others in Google as well.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&[email protected]

It could be the combination of selecting a scan rate near the
bounds of the monitors capabilities, plus marginal components in
the monitor, that caused a failure right now.

Does the monitor have a reset button or a hole where you insert a
pin to reset the processor in there to factory defaults ? If
you didn't have a spectacular (smoking or frying sounds) failure,
maybe the monitor just needs to be reset. My old Sony has a hole
in the bezel of the monitor, where you push a pin to reset
the smarts inside the monitor.

If you find a way to get to the Windows desktop again, check
the refresh rate, to see if it is a lot higher than 75Hz or 85Hz.
If it was set a lot higher than that, turn it down. You only
need to set the refresh rate fast enough to avoid flicker - more
than that wastes electricity (tube monitor power consumption
increases with resolution and refresh rate) and only serves
to make the scan linearity worse.

HTH,
Paul

 

[kanenas]

Thank you all for the comments.
I always operate the monitor at 85Hz at 1280x1024x32 at most. It's
well within the P95F capabilities. The old 17" Viewsonic I usually
drive at 1024x768x32 at 75Hz but maybe it's getting old that's why it
flickers.
By the way the flickering is not the type that appears when the
frequency is wrong for the monitor. The display is sharp but it jumps
around now and then in a random fashion (like somebody slaps the
monitor at the moment).
The P95F worked perfectly with a GF 5200 card until it burned.
Before that, as I mentioned, I used the Asus V9980 Ultra that used to
freeze the system (or the display).
The V9980 went back to the store and they told me this morning that it
works fine with them (it didn't work for me and worked only at low
resolutions on another computer).
So now they suspect a bad mobo (since the PS2 mouse doesn't work) or a
problem with the power supply (a brand-new 420W).
We'll see. I sent them the complete box (minus hard disks) to verify
where the problem is.
Could the mobo cause the frequency to change somehow (assuming you
mean the one showing under monitor properties)?
I know the NVidia drivers do that sometimes but in this case it's
doubtful. It hasn't happened yet when I check using the 17" monitor.
One good thing came out of that too.
I took the monitor to a store this morning to have it repaired. I
found out it's still under warranty. I contacted the main dealer and
tomorrow they'll bring to my house a brand-new replacement. Ain't that
nice from Viewsonic?
Regards.

 

[Paul]

Thank you all for the comments.
I always operate the monitor at 85Hz at 1280x1024x32 at most. It's
well within the P95F capabilities. The old 17" Viewsonic I usually
drive at 1024x768x32 at 75Hz but maybe it's getting old that's why it
flickers.
By the way the flickering is not the type that appears when the
frequency is wrong for the monitor. The display is sharp but it jumps
around now and then in a random fashion (like somebody slaps the
monitor at the moment).
The P95F worked perfectly with a GF 5200 card until it burned.
Before that, as I mentioned, I used the Asus V9980 Ultra that used to
freeze the system (or the display).
The V9980 went back to the store and they told me this morning that it
works fine with them (it didn't work for me and worked only at low
resolutions on another computer).
So now they suspect a bad mobo (since the PS2 mouse doesn't work) or a
problem with the power supply (a brand-new 420W).
We'll see. I sent them the complete box (minus hard disks) to verify
where the problem is.
Could the mobo cause the frequency to change somehow (assuming you
mean the one showing under monitor properties)?
I know the NVidia drivers do that sometimes but in this case it's
doubtful. It hasn't happened yet when I check using the 17" monitor.
One good thing came out of that too.
I took the monitor to a store this morning to have it repaired. I
found out it's still under warranty. I contacted the main dealer and
tomorrow they'll bring to my house a brand-new replacement. Ain't that
nice from Viewsonic?
Regards.

Glad to hear the warranty is still in effect. It would suck to
have to throw a big monitor away.

I don't know what to suggest on the screen "jumping around". It
sounds more related to a video card side problem, as the sweep
circuits on an analog monitor don't like to make abrupt changes.
As long as the sync tips are present in the video signal, at
an unvarying frequency, the monitor display should remain
synhronized and shouldn't be jumping.

You would think if this was a power problem, the computer would
be crashing a lot or misbehaving in other aspects of system
operation.

As for coincidences, I bought a new video card one day, and
plugged it into my computer. Immediately, there was "snow" on
the display, and I thought the new video card was defective.
It turned out that a ribbon cable inside the monitor had worked
its way loose, and was about to fall off. The snow was caused
by the bad contact of that cable. I was all set to return the
video card, until I took the back off the monitor and did a
"look but don't touch" inspection. Not recommended if you
don't know what parts in there that are not suitable for
touching! Since the cable was in a low voltage section of
the monitor, it was safe to push back into its socket.
(I've only been thrown across a room by high voltage once,
but once is all the education you need

HTH,
Paul