Member Avatar for rrssss

Hello forum

I just purchased a new LCD wide screen 24 inch monitor to replace the 19 inch CRT I had. The new wide screen is a Samsung syncmaster 245BW and I have installed the proper drivers for the monitor in Windows XP sp2.

I periodocally see horizontal white streaks (noise bars) starting from the left side of the monitor and traveling towards the right side. It sometimes happens if the monitor is only showing the destop but most often happens when I am watching a full screen video.

It doesn't matter if I am using analogue mode or digital mode.

According to the manual, there is an adjustment called "fine" that is supposed to align the phase of the internal pixel clock to the incoming horizontal sync and it is supposed to get rid of these "noise bars". But when I tweak this adjustment, it doesn't seem to help.

I have several electric/electronic devices located no more than three and a half feet from the monitor such as a UPS, a sub woofer, a USB external hard drive, and a wide screen TV is located about four feet away. Is it possible I am getting interference from one of these devices?

My main question would be, Are white streaks a common problem with LCD flat screen monitors? Is anybody else out there having similar problems? Does anybody have any suggestions?

I didn't have any problems with the old CRT 19 inch monitor I had located in the same spot.

Thanks in advance,
Roy

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A few focused checks will quickly narrow this down and save time at the store.

Horizontal, moving white bars are usually caused by one of three things: the signal path (cable/connector/settings), the video card, or a fault inside the monitor. As suggested, updating the display driver is an easy first step. Also note that the monitor’s “fine” (phase) adjustment only affects analogue (VGA) inputs — it does nothing when the display is fed a digital signal (DVI/HDMI). If the problem appears on both analogue and digital inputs and across different operating systems, that strongly points at hardware rather than a simple driver bug.

Practical troubleshooting steps (in order):

  • Swap the video cable for a known-good, well-shielded cable and try the other digital/analogue input.
  • Test the monitor with a different computer (or test a different monitor on the same computer) to isolate monitor vs. GPU.
  • Reseat the video card, check power/grounding (try a different mains outlet and remove the UPS temporarily), and disconnect nearby noisy devices (subwoofer, external drives) while testing.
  • Try the monitor’s factory reset and confirm it’s set to the panel’s native resolution/refresh rate. For video playback artifacts, try changing the player’s renderer (disable hardware overlay/acceleration) to see if that removes the streaks.

If the bars persist after those tests, the most likely outcome is internal monitor electronics or panel defect — exchange or warranty repair is appropriate. When exchanging, test the replacement on-site with the same cables and PC so the fault can’t hide in the wiring or graphics card.

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Member Avatar for dewabo

Do you have an onboard graphics caed or a plug in? If it's an onboard graphics then you should go to the manufactuers' web site and do an update for it.Most LCD monitors don't have that problem, it sounds like a trace peoblem and the update may take care of it.Most noise patterns are verial lines, with your's it sounds as though they are horzonal and that is trace problems.

Member Avatar for dewabo

I made a booboo. Noise is a line though the center of your screen, trace is a line that runs vertially from left to right on your screen.:$

Member Avatar for rrssss

Thanks Dewabo,


My monitor is now malfunctioning in an additional way. Whenever I open up certain windows such as "my documents", the monitor fluctuates from light to dark along with other distortions (whenever I use certain pre-set modes such as text mode, Internet mode, game mode, etc).

I'm afraid I'm going to have to see about getting it exchanged for another one since I have 30 days to do it from the store I bought it from.

To answer you question, however, I have an AGP video card from ATI, the 800X. The horizontal streaks also appear in Linux (I have a triple boot configuration with Windows and three distributions of Linux installed).

Roy

Member Avatar for rrssss

I took my monitor back to Best Buy and exchanged it for an LG Flatron Wide screen. This new monitor works beautifully with no streaks and the viewing angle is wider.

Roy

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