Ask Juan - Question and Answer

Old Monitor - Lines or Wrinkles

---

Question:
Sometimes I get brownish lines running across my screen. They seem to run
from the last of a word to the right hand side of the screen. I thought it
might be my hard drive but I have a completely new one and it is still
doing it. It does not happen all the time, just like now they just
disappeared. Can you help me out to solve this problem? Very annoying.

Answer:
Shirley, I have encountered many similar cases in my career. I have also
encountered just as many solutions. Each time I approach the question from
a slightly different angle. My thoughts are immediately centered on the
monitor in this case. I “think” it is your monitor that is failing.

The first thing I would do to verify my theory is to plug the monitor to a
different computer to see if it reacts that same. If it does, then you know
the monitor is on its way out. I do not know how old your monitor is but if
you can verify that it is an old one, then perhaps you might want to
replace it with a new one. I would not even attempt to repair this one. It
just would not make any sense to spend more money than what you can spend
on a new one.

The cost of a new monitor of the CRT type (the old fashioned tube kind) is
about $80 for a 17” as of this writing. You can buy a 17” flat panel
display (LCD) for about $150 at the most. You do the math.