Monitor turns pink after CD rom used.

[Haliph]

I was playing a CD game when suddenly the screen turned into a linear pink pattern. All the things in the video game turned to partial messed up visuals and some binary. I tried to fix it by trying different CDs but when i went to the desktop, it was pink as well. When I went on the internet however, it kind of fixed itself. I vacuumed out some dust inside the tower and then it seemed better. It still turned pink with CD games but it wouldn't freeze like before. Just recently I turned on my computer and the monitor wouldn't turn on. I had to wait a day and then turn it on and it showed up pink at the login screen. I am on Windows XP x64 and the CDs were easily runnable on this computer. Help!

[ScottR]

Sounds like one of two possibilities, the monitor or the graphics card. My first guess would be the monitor as a lot of times when the graphics card goes bad you get a fatal error and windows will shut down.

Good Luck!

[Haliph]

Thanks for the help but even so, i guess i neglected to mention that recently, it's been either freezing and then the graphics go really wacky, or shutting down even. No error message though. I really thought it was connected to my CD Drive.

[TommyO]

Haliph,
Generally, if hardware is going to fail, it fails. While possible, it usually does not come and go. So, also consider that it could be the video driver. If Windows decided to update it automatically, the newer version could have problems. It's interesting that certain applications would invoke the problem. This usually means a graphic mode, graphic command or memory overlap problem. So, check that all the graphic card settings are at their factory defaults and check the driver version. Also, have you added any hardware, or made any changes to the hardware lately, i.e. moved anything to a new slot, added memory, anything at all.

[Haliph]

I haven't added any new hardware and I believe it might be the monitor because sometimes previous images will stick on the screen such as a reminder window that i close will stay in ghost on the screen. Even as I am writing this those pink bars showed up randomly in my text... I find it hard to believe it would be just the monitor. How would I go about checking my graphics card?

[TommyO]

Haliph,
I generally start with two processes.

1.) Power down the computer. Open it, vacuum it out, re-seat all the adapter cards (in this case, especially the graphic adapter).

2.) Power everything back up. First check Control Panel. Often the graphic card will have installed a control panel applet that can do diagnostics. If not, check the CD that came with the graphic card. If nothing there, check the manufacturers web site. After that, you can decide what to do.
a.) If diagnostics fail, you're done.
b.) If diagnostics pass, I would reload the graphic card driver from the CD. It's older but possibly better. After that, check the version of the driver under the display properties. Compare that to what is currently out on the manufacturers web site. Decide if you want to upgrade again, based upon advantages vs system performance.

Ghosting is a whole different issue. That is caused by the phosphors on a CRT. It is generally not reversible.

[ScottR]

I had a the cooling fan go bad on a graphic card and if I had shut down the computer for awhile and then restart I had no problems until the graphic chip over heated. If your card has a fan you might check to see if it is running while the computer is on.

[Kraellin]

this sounds very much like a monitor going bad, a vid card going bad or a heat problem. to check for which, first, find another monitor you can use temporarily. that's the easiest. if you have no extra handy and no friend's one you can use, take your whole rig into a store that sells them and have a salesperson let you test one in the store. they almost always will because it will result in a sale if it's bad.

the vid card could also be going bad. is this an onboard graphics card or one you plugged in? and, is is pci, agp, pci-e, sli or what? again, the easiest thing is to just swap yours out with another, unless it's an onboard. if it's an onboard, slap yourself for buying a piece of crap and go buy a real card make sure you turn off the onboard in bios.

heat can be a tricky one. the best first step is to find one of those software apps that monitors internal heat. any computer/motherboard/cpu manufactured within the last 10 years has internal sensors for heat detection. they dont always have a desktop app that shows you this data, however. find one if you dont already have one and then find out what temperature your system can stand. the board manufacturer will have that data, usually on their site.

now, tommy is right that it could also be drivers, but he's already covered that.

but, this statement:

Just recently I turned on my computer and the monitor wouldn't turn on.

would have me running to the store to check my monitor. i've had things like that happen before and they can indeed get progressively worse. with monitors, they tend to fry slowly, not all at once. you can very intermittent results for weeks sometimes, but heat can do that also, but heat wont keep you from booting up for 24 hours. this mostly points to a monitor going bad, especially if it's a crt type.

[Haliph]

alright thanks for the help. I believe i have a prehistoric monitor i can use for the time being. Hopefully that will solve the problem.

[flexmanta]

Check if your power supply can give enough juice. Using a CD increases the load on it, and sometimes a decrease in voltage can affect your GPU.

source: A low wattage power supply that i had screwed up my gpu once. And yes, problems would appear after burning CDs and DVDs. Problems like, GPU not booting for a whole day, or sound card buffer running out constantly until the eventual complete destruction of the GPU and MOBO.