For some strange reason, my external monitor is showing horizontal purple bars across my screen, but usually only when there is some type of gradient across the screen. Please see two images attached, one showing the purple bar in the gradient pattern background of Microsoft Word, and the other showing purple fringes while playing a video.

 

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/2544/gladiatorpurple.jpg

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/449/wordf.jpg

 

Some observations:

 

-I've tried two different sets of drivers 182.06 and 182.05, both have problem

 

-These purple bars do not display on my laptop screen, only on my Dell 2408wfp monitor (I have yet to try another monitor. I know... I know... but with details below, I'm confident they'll show up)

 

-BUT, the purple bars do not go across the entire screen, they move with the specific program window, even when I resize and shrink it down, the purple bars stay inside

 

-These purple bars/splotches aren't specific to one program. I see them in zoom player, wmplayer, safari browser, and microsoft word.

 

-The fact that I can take a screen shot of them and view them in paint shows that it can't be a problem with the monitor (or I assume a physical hardware problem such as bad video card, right?)

 

-They appear over my hdmi connection and vga connection, so it can't be the hdmi or vga connectors (or cables) I think the strangest part is that I can take a screen shot of them from within the operating system. Does this mean it can't be a hardware problem?

Could this have anything to do with Vista's color profiles?

Specs:

-HP dv5t laptop

 

-Nvidia 9600m gt 512mb

 

-Vista Ultimate 64

 

ALSO, when looking in device manager, I just saw that under display adapters, I also have VNC mirror driver installed (for Real VNC remote connections). I should probably uninstall this for experimental measure, but off hand, any possible way this could be causing the problem? Thanks for the help guys!