Red lines and discoloration on my screen: any way to fix it?

JohnJSal

JohnJSal

Active Member
Hi all. A couple of nights ago my screen suddenly had some red discoloration on the left side, like thin bars. After I restarted, it went away for about a day, but then it happened again last night. This morning when I woke up my PC, it flashed a bit more red across the screen then went away.

But as I started typing this post, it came back and now the whole screen is a pale red/pink color. Worse, mouse movements and typing freeze every couple of seconds, I guess maybe because the screen isn't refreshing properly?

I'm typing out this post during this, which is difficult! I'm also hoping to attach an image. Is there anything I can do about this, or is the monitor just dying?

Thanks!

Edit: Minor update, probably doesn't change much...the right side of the screen seems to have gone back to normal and the mouse movement and typing don't freeze anymore (for now). Right now it's just the left side of the screen (like when it first started a couple of days ago) that has the pink lines.

Edit 2: I'm trying to update my graphics drivers, but when I reach the point of installing them it fails. See second screenshot, which also better shows the discoloration against a dark background. Should I try manually downloading and installing rather than using the Nvidia software?
 

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Last edited:
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Sounds like the video card has had it to be honest, especially if there is a problem installing the drivers for it.
 
JohnJSal

JohnJSal

Active Member
johnb35 said:
Sounds like the video card has had it to be honest, especially if there is a problem installing the drivers for it.
Click to expand...

Oh god, that would really suck! I just replaced it a couple of years ago! :(

Is there anything I can do to check it? Any particular screens that might not have this issue if it is or isn't the monitor? Like when I first booted it up just now, the black loadup screen already had pink all across it. Not sure if that indicates anything or not. In other words, it's not just happening within Windows.

Maybe a diagnostic test or something?
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Have you tried removing it and reinserting it in the slot? I would also borrow a video card just to make sure its not a slot/motherboard problem.
 
JohnJSal

JohnJSal

Active Member
johnb35 said:
Have you tried removing it and reinserting it in the slot? I would also borrow a video card just to make sure its not a slot/motherboard problem.
Click to expand...

I haven't tried anything yet. I assumed it was the monitor, which hopefully it is if it's anything at all! That's definitely the easiest thing to replace. I think I have an extra monitor, so I guess my first step would be to try plugging that in and checking it. I suppose it could also be the HDMI cable, but that seems unlikely.
 
JohnJSal

JohnJSal

Active Member
Ack, turns out I can't find the power cable for the monitor, and it's also only a DVI connection, so I'm not sure if that would be a good test since my current setup uses HDMI.

If I can find an HDMI cable, would changing that be worth it? I've heard that HDMI cables either work or don't and that there's no in between, so I'm not sure if the HDMI cable would be the issue anyway.

(Right now the whole screen is a light green color with a pink section across the top about the width of a homescreen icon. The pink is slightly flickering and the mouse/keyboard response is freezing again every few seconds.)
 
JohnJSal

JohnJSal

Active Member
::sigh::

Okay, I switched HDMI cables just to check, but that wasn't the problem.

I also ended up finding the power cable and DVI cable for the old monitor, but it turns out that my GPU does not have a DVI port! So I can't really test the old monitor and know for sure that the problem isn't the GPU.

However, when plugging in the power of my current (problematic) monitor, even when the HDMI cable wasn't plugged into it yet, it still had the discoloration on the screen, so I'm guessing that means the problem can't be with the GPU, since the HDMI cable wasn't even plugged in. The monitor itself was doing it just from being powered on.

I'm not sure what else to do, so I guess I just need to buy a new monitor and hope that was the problem all along.
 
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