Hi!
A few months ago I gave my old PC to a friend as I was upgrading and he wanted a PC. Everything worked fine except the monitor had several "clusters" of red dots on various parts of the screen. I guessed those were stuck pixels, and I assumed the monitor was nearing it's last legs. Still he was happy to take it. Oddly enough after I gave it to him and set it up, the red pixels disappeared and the monitor functioned fine for a few months. Recently they came back so he decided to buy a new monitor. After he plugged it in, it worked fine except the same red clusters were there...does this mean the monitor is ok and it is a graphics card issue? Not really sure what to do or what to tell him. I feel bad as he just shelled out for a new screen! Any info/help much appreciated! Thanks in advance
Cool, thanks for that. Brand new monitor and new cables - problem persists with both SVGA cable and DVI cables - so I guess that narrrows it down to the GFX card. I know this may sound like a stupid or complete noob question but, any ideas why the GFX card causes that problem? i.e just old/worn out, taken a knock, clash with another piece of hardware etc. And I'm guessing you can't repair it, just get another card? My friend isn't into games so downgrading to a cheap card should be fine right? (currently has a GeForce 6800 - old nowadays I know!)
is the videocard in a slot or part of the motherboard? reseat both the videocard & motherboard ram after using a pencil eraser on the gold contacts of the videocard & ram. it removes oxidation off those contacts. if videocard is part of motherboard & have at least 2 sticks of ram then try 1 stick at a time to see if red dots are still there.
Thanks for the ideas guys. The videocard is in a separate slot and it has 2 sticks of RAM so I'll reseat them after trying out the eraser trick. Fingers crossed!
