Install a new monitor

Just plug in another monitor, Windows will autodetect it. If the problem's not the monitor, it might be your video card or software related. What kind of graphics problems are you having?

Here's whats going on: About a week ago I had a "Crash To Desktop" while running a 3D Game. Ever since then my display has been degraded. There's a fine screen of dots that you can see on the monitor, kind of like the Windows98 shutdown screen where the display looks real blocky, just not as bad. Jpeg wall paper shows Jpeg compression marks, and colors do not transition smoothly; none of these effects was readily noticeable before. For Instance, a blue sky would go from light blue to dark blue in noticeable steps insted of a smooth transition. I've adjusted every graphics setting I could find on my graphic card control panel and display properties. I've set colors to 32 bit, adjusted screen res up and then back to my normal 1024 X 768, and upgraded my Nvidia GeForce4 Video card drivers. Then I contacted the manufacturer of my Monitor, and they suggested re-installing the "INF" file which I guess is the file that Windows uses to auto-detect a plug and play Monitor. I downloaded the above mentioned file, but don't know how to install it, still waiting for a reply from their support people. I don't think the monitor is going out, it's only 2 years old. The Monitor is a ViewSonic A90, and I've been very happy with it. Went to their site to download the "INF" file for Win98. Does anyone know how to load this file? Thanks for your reply!

Doesn't sound like a hardwre issue. Try going into the device manager and uninstalling the monitor. Reboot and it should be redetected.

-- Ah sh*t! sys64738 --

Thanks, Mavicator! I'll give it a try. Checked everything else, maybe this will work.

UPDATE: Re-installed the "Inf" file for plug and play; no effect on the problem, hooked up my little 15 inch monitor and screen distortion appeared on that monitor as well, so it looks like it's software. Hooked my big monitor back up, so I'm stumped. Short of reformatting hard drives and re-installing Windows, I don't know how to proceed. Any ideas? Thanks.

I've sometimes gotten visual distortions when my video card has come slightly loose. Try taking it out and putting it back in or even swap it with another card.

Thanks, KrazeIke! I'll try that, but first I'm going to try a suggestion from another forum and Mavicator's suggestion above. In the reply from another forum, the person suggests booting into safe mode and removing all video adapters from the device manager, then rebooting. I believe I did this once before a couple of years ago, and it worked, I just forgot about it. If that doesn't work, then I'll try reinserting the card or putting my old 3DFX Voodoo 3 back in. Thanks for your reply!

DUAL MONITORS> Hit fn and then the f8 key. That's all! Windows does not automatically pick up a new monitor all the time. We couldn't get to our device manager or anything because the laptop screen was broken but windows wouldn't do it automatically. So this was the answer!