Could you give a little more information -- especially regarding your monitor and video card?

 

Are the bars always in the same place?

Are they perfectly horizontal?

Do they ever disappear, say after the screen warms up after having been on for a while?

Do they appear 'ghostly' as in a shadow for an image on the screen?

 

With this info I could be more helpful.

Thanks for replying.  First off, I am using a nvidia geoForce 256 video card and I have a Magview monitor.

Yes, the bars always seem to be in the same place and are perfectly horizontal.  However, if I pull up the sign-on screen to AOL and the box for AOL appears in the middle, there seems to be a top and bottom extension of the box which goes to the edges of the screen from it in the form of a gray bar/line.  Right now, as I'm typing, it's like being a child and learning to write on looseleaf paper.  The letters are sort of encased (their height) by the gray lines.  It's like I'm typing and filling in the horizontal gray line.  The line do not ever go away, even if I leave the computer on all night.  They are there.  When I boot up the computer, you can see them on the Windows ME screen, running through, very thickly, the "ME" logo.  I don't know if I'd call the ghostly, but I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that.  The darkness of the gray is not that deep.  For instance, if I open a folder on my desktop, let's say My Briefcase, you don't even see them.

I hope this information has helped you a bit.  If you have any question, please feel free to ask.  I appreciate so much the help you are tring to provide.  Have a great day.

Lori

You sound like you are having the exact same problem as I just had this week, and a number of other people have had recently.

The unfortunate news is that you probably need a new video card.  The problem is most likely being caused by the hardware itself. 

I tried using my monitor with a different system, and the problem went away.  I also re-installed the video drivers, and that didn't help.  That basically established that the problem was with the card.

I ended up purchasing a new video card (which ended up only being $37.. and if your system is still under warranty from Dell, they'll fork it over for you).  The problem immediately went away with the new card.

As I said, there are about 5 other people who have posted on the boards recently with the same exact problem.  No one knows the cause aside from general hardware failure.  I've worked a lot lot with LCD projection which uses the same 15-pin VGA output that these graphics cards do... and when one pin-output breaks, we would get image problems that looked like what you have described and what I experienced with my own computer.  That is my guess as to what has been happening.

---

Here are some links to other posts on the same topic.

My experience:http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_monitor&message.id=30682

Other people's experience:http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_monitor&message.id=30200

New cards:http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_monitor&message.id=30694

Message Edited by LaVerdad1 on 01-31-2004 09:21 AM

I purchased a Geforce2 MX400 chipset AGP 4X 64MB DDR.

 

If you can, try to buy the same card you already have.  I looked on newegg.com, as was suggested to me on these boards.  I'm not 100% certain of all the compatibility issues -- but one thing to note if your current card is AGP or PCI port -- which refers to how it connects to the motherboard.  I'm guessing it's an AGP, but just make sure (probably can find that info in the system area of the control panel). 

 

How many Megs of ram does your current card have?  And what about the rest of you system?

Thanks again for getting back to me so fast.  I did have a virus, a startpage.bk trojan, which at first I was blaming for the issue.  But my antivirus company said they didn't have anything to do with each other.  I guess the answer will be to get a new video card.

May I ask what type you got and where?  Did you buy it through Dell or online somewhere?  And, one last question, do you know if I need to know anything about compatibility before I purchase a new card?

You have been more than helpful and I thank you very much for your concern and fast replies.

Lori