Is this monitor broken?

[rhino1616]

Hi,

My girlfriend has been going crazy trying to use her computer. The monitor is constantly going sqiggly & then back to normal. She cant properly surf the net & use her programs. I connected my monitor to her computer to see if the same thing would happen & it did. My monitor started acting the same way. I reconnected her monitor & reset the refresh rate, but no change. I checked for any magnetic interfence around her computer but there is none. Her father has a solitaire game installed on it that he's been playing for the past year & now when he plays its the program that causes the mostly distortion in the screen. Im not a computer tech, so Im assuming this might be a videocard in its last days of life. Her computer is a P3 900 w/soltek SL-75LIV fully intergrated motherboard. Does anyone know what this problem could be? Is it the monitor, the video card or something else?

Thank you

[Catweazle]

Did you by any chance use the same monitor cable to connect both monitors? If so it could be damaged, and I'd be trying a different cable before assuming that it's a more drastic hardware problem.

[Mike Feury]

It's not the monitor, since same happens with your one. Almost certainly cable or graphics chip.