[NTLUG:Discuss] Video woes

[Steve Baker]

Dennis Myhand wrote:


> I have a somewhat off-topic video question.  I have a system running a
> Slackware variant.  I went to bed last night and it was fine.  I got up
> this morning and the video seemed washed out.  Any white text was a
> light blue in color.  Did I loose a video card in the night?  Or is this
> more of a monitor problem?  Thanks, Dennis in Victoria

Sounds like you lost RED (White minus Red ==> Cyan...light blue).

Can you see any red anywhere on the screen?

If you aren't sure, surf over to this site:

   http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm

...the colour bars in the image at the top of the
screen should look (from left to right):

   Grey, Yellow, Cyan, Green, Magenta, Red, Blue.

If you see:

   Dark blue/grey, Green, Cyan, Green, Blue, Black, Blue

then you lost Red - then it could be:

  1) A bad connection - try wiggling the video cable - you might
     get lucky!

  2) A dead RAM in the video card (unlikely I'd say)...you needed
     an excuse to pick up one of those sexy new GeForce 4 Ti 4600's
     anyway!

  3) A monitor problem (more likely)...bad news  :-(

If there is *some* red - but it's dim - then it's unlikely to be the
cable...but it's hard to tell whether it's the card or the monitor.

The very best way to diagnose this is to borrow another monitor and
see whether the fault goes away.

One time (years ago) when I had a colour plane go out like that,
I butchered an old video cable and crossed over the Red and Blue
video signals.

Now, if the places that were once Red light up in brilliant Blue, and
blue pixels go black (or dark red) you know that your monitor has a
problem.  If places that were red stay dark and places that were blue
show up in a nice, brilliant red - then you know that your graphics
card has failed.

----------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------------
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