Monitor tinted green - Monitor/Cable OK

[Lord Ned]

Hey everyone, recently I wanted to try SLI to get some more performance out of my games. I have two Geforce 8500 GT's, and I hooked them up no problem. Then, one day I turned my computer on, and everything was tinted green!


On the left side of the monitor I have a zig-zag bar running straight up and down, and the rest of my screen has a wonderful green tint. So after taking the basic trouble shooting steps (Checked the cable connections, etc) and everything still stayed the same, I shut down, pulled the cards out of SLI, and put just one in. I turned it back on, and what do you know, it's still green. I fixed it temporarily by using a VGA to DVI converter and hooking my monitor into the DVI slot on the card, but then I was playing COD4 and the screen started vignetting, and then the black bar showed up and I knew I had trouble.

What I have done:
Tried both video cards on their own in non-sli configuration
Reinstalled GFX drivers, both current and old versions
Tried the monitor on another computer, it's perfectly fine.
Tried both PCI 16x slots in my Motherboard with either card.

What's strange is: The brighter the screen/application, the more pronounced the green effect is and darker the monitor is. So when I have Firefox open with BleepingComputer, it's pretty green and dark. But if I minimize to my spotless black desktop, the green effect is gone (no it's not just hiding), and the only appearance is the zig zag. In addition to this, if I bump the resolution down one notch (From 1440x900 to 1360x76 the green goes away. However, when I went to test COD4 it popped back into it's green status.

GPU-Z reports the temperatures at 53c at idle.


Anyone have any clue what is failing here? I'd say it's drivers/software conflict because it displays fine in the windows XP bootup and welcome screen, but after that it goes kaput. Then again, it could be hardware. Any ideas?


Pictures:

Edit:
Okay. I went and played around with a second monitor. I could play Call of Duty just fine on the other monitor, but as soon as I put it back on mine, we had problems. I never actually got back into COD4 -- This is because when I switched the monitors back across it downgraded my resolution. Something about 1400x900 @ 60Hz makes the green happen. Any other resolution is fine. I dunno about lower then 60Hz as it isn't an option, and above 60hz is out of range. However, while my monitor was hooked up to his computer, it was just fine at 1440x900 @ 59.88 Hz.

Where it gets even weirder is shutting down the computer, re-seating the card, plugging it back in, starting her up, and it works fine at 1440x900 @ 60 Hz.


What's going on? Is it my video card, or is my monitor kicking the bucket. (Eek)

[SXRguyinMA]

I vote for your monitor kicking the bucket

[XcOM]

you using dvi or vga?

if its vga i would say either your monitor is going or theres an intermetant break in the cable.

If its dvi i would say the monitor as the cable transmits the colour table

[Lord Ned]

Monitor cable is VGA but it's using a VGA to DVI converter. (Plugged into the DVI slot on my card)

However, it works fine on another computer, at 1440x900 @ Almost 60Hz. So why would it work there and not here?

[XcOM]

it could be your gfx card not liking the monitor? have you installed the drivers and correct colour profiles for the monitors?

[Luke122]

Are you using the same cable and adaptor on another computer?

[Lord Ned]

it could be your gfx card not liking the monitor? have you installed the drivers and correct colour profiles for the monitors?

I don't have a driver disk for the monitor, never have bothered with one. Never have bothered with color profiles either.

Are you using the same cable and adaptor on another computer?

Correct. The cable is imbedded in the monitor () so I've been using the same VGA->DVI->Dvi Port on both computers.


I did fix the green tint! I used Powerstrip to force the monitors refresh rate to 75Hz. This made the green tint go away.

This fixed all of my problems for 3-4 days. Then I lost my 1440x900 screen resolution.

When I came home today, I booted my computer up and I was in 1360x768, not my native 1440x900.

I re-installed drivers, I've booted a bunch of times, checked the cables, etc.

I cannot get to 1440x900 in either:
Windows Display Manager
NVidia Display Manager
Powerstrip

I have 1600x900 and 1360x768, but not 1440x900.


Halp. D:

[Eclecticos]

I think it is defiantly the monitor cable, or possibly just the monitor going bad.
I would also check out the monitor in the device manager, update the drivers, and reset the settings to default.
You may also want to check the pins on your DVI cable, to make sure they are not bent or anything.
Also uninstall the video card drivers, and reinstall them.
Make sure they are the updated versions or firmware.

[Lord Ned]

I've updated the video card drivers multiple times with full uninstalls between them.
DVI Converter + VGA Cable pins are Ok -- Can't verify the cable, unfortunately it's fixed to the monitor on one end.
As far as I know they are updated versions/firmware. (Nvidia Geforce 8500, NVidia's site just has 8Series drivers)


Do you think It's worth getting the monitor replaced? It's got a 3 year parts/labor, but I'd still have to pay a effton in shipping.

[XcOM]

run a uge magnet over the top, be careful though, too strong for too long and you can bugger up the monitor, but this should force the tubes to emit LOTs of colour and some times fix them when they get stuck.