Monitor about to blow up?!!!

[Carl S]

I have had a few worrying moments with my monitor lately, when the following happens;

1) Short, crackling sound
2) Display suddenly enlarges, so that parts of display cannot be seen on monitor.
3) A few seconds later the screen shrinks back to normal size!

I have a Sampo 19" CRT monitor, an MSI Geforce fx5900xt graphics card with the latest drivers, running within Windows XP.

Is my monitor about to die on me or is it the graphics card?

 

[JohnWill]

It sounds like the monitor is about to bite the big one! I doubt this is the graphics card, though if it's changing modes it might cause the display to change. Does this happen at some specific time, or just when you're sitting in Windows?

 

[!JOLT!]

Is there anyway you can try the monitor on another machine?

 

[Whitestar]

I had that when my 20" monitor died. Never found out what caused it. It did what yours is doing for about a month, then one day it just wouldnt turn on.

 

[Wolfeymole]

It's the cracking sounds that means it's down the pipe carl.
Turn it off now and unplug it from the pc before it blows and takes some thing else with it.
I used to test monitors for a living and when I heard it cracking off it went and then went straight to recycling.
Wolfey

 

[ineedhelp890]

Go get yourself a nice new LCD display.

 

[Whitestar]

Yep, especially as 17" LCDs are reasonably priced and still getting cheaper.

 

[Drew7997]

I don't like LCD's as much as CRT's though, the pixel size is bigger and the color depth isn't as nice as CRT's.

 

[Carl S]

Oh dear, sounds like I need to buy a tombstone for my old pal of a monitor!

The cracking has been happening while sitting in Windows.

I have to say it's not been sounding too healthy, and from your comments I feel a new monitor cometh! I am tempted to relegate it to my second PC, which currently only has a 15" display, but I don't want to blow that PC up if the monitor goes too.. Do you think I should risk it?

At least it gives me an excuse to buy a flat-screen for my main PC!

Thank you all for your advice - it's much appreciated.