Riddle me this; Blue-ish screen

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JohnB

I have an older Dell computer - Dimension 8200 - that is running XP Pro.
The PC is being used by one of the kids. The PC is 6+ years old, but it
works fine for kids.

The other day they reported that the screen "looked blue". And sure enough
the image has a blue tint to it. This computer has the original 15" flat
panel monitor. I swapped that monitor with another, known good, flat panel.
The image still looked blue. So I bought a new, fairly inexpensive video
card. I put the card in, expecting to see everything back to normal but...
the screen image still was much bluer than normal... although it looked like
it was slightly better than before.

This is very strange. The new video card couldn't possibly be the problem.
What are the odds of a 6 year old and brand new card both having the same
problem; everything has a blue tint to it. I checked the display settings
in Windows on the new card. Everything is at factory defaults.

Anyone ever seen this? What could be wrong? I thought the only thing that
affected the screen image was either the monitor or the display card.

TIA
 
JohnB said:
I have an older Dell computer - Dimension 8200 - that is running XP Pro.
The PC is being used by one of the kids. The PC is 6+ years old, but it
works fine for kids.

The other day they reported that the screen "looked blue". And sure enough
the image has a blue tint to it. This computer has the original 15" flat
panel monitor. I swapped that monitor with another, known good, flat panel.
The image still looked blue. So I bought a new, fairly inexpensive video
card. I put the card in, expecting to see everything back to normal but...
the screen image still was much bluer than normal... although it looked like
it was slightly better than before.

This is very strange. The new video card couldn't possibly be the problem.
What are the odds of a 6 year old and brand new card both having the same
problem; everything has a blue tint to it. I checked the display settings
in Windows on the new card. Everything is at factory defaults.

Anyone ever seen this? What could be wrong? I thought the only thing that
affected the screen image was either the monitor or the display card.

TIA
Click to expand...

There are all sorts of ways to foul up the color.

1) Broken wire in VGA cable or connector pin.
2) Sync setting. I've noticed discoloration on a monitor
when the video device uses sync-on-green.
3) Someone throws a third party gamma tool into the system
(one computer here has a copy of some Adobe gamma thing).
4) Enter video card control panel, use the color adjustments.
Mine has gamma adjustments per color, if desired. Color
temperature setting is another one (even CRTs had that, and
you could get a blue tint from changing the setting). In
my case, I use the ATI Catalyst Control Panel, as it came
with my ATI graphics card.

I would have assumed a hardware problem as well, if I knew
that no one had added software or fiddled with stuff.

Paul
 
JohnB said:
I have an older Dell computer - Dimension 8200 - that is running XP Pro.
The PC is being used by one of the kids. The PC is 6+ years old, but it
works fine for kids.

The other day they reported that the screen "looked blue". And sure
enough the image has a blue tint to it. This computer has the original
15" flat panel monitor. I swapped that monitor with another, known good,
flat panel. The image still looked blue. So I bought a new, fairly
inexpensive video card. I put the card in, expecting to see everything
back to normal but... the screen image still was much bluer than normal...
although it looked like it was slightly better than before.

This is very strange. The new video card couldn't possibly be the
problem. What are the odds of a 6 year old and brand new card both having
the same problem; everything has a blue tint to it. I checked the display
settings in Windows on the new card. Everything is at factory defaults.

Anyone ever seen this? What could be wrong? I thought the only thing
that affected the screen image was either the monitor or the display card.
Click to expand...

Further to Paul's answer, you may like to note that most monitors have what
is called a 'colour temperature' setting. The higher the number of 'K' the
bluer the image. Have you checked this and if necessay set it to a warmer
colour (lower K).

For example, mine is set to 6500K which a reasonable white. Setting it to
9300K give the image a very blue cast. As for how you access the colour
temperature menu? For that you will have to consult the book of
instructions for your monitor.
 
Bingo! That was it!
One of the pins in the video cable connector was bent over. Which I must
have done at some point. The kids wouldn't dare mess with something like
that.

I can't believe I didn't think of that one. I will now!!

Thanks for your help.
 
Turned out to be a bent pin in the cable.
After looking at it some more I noticed that the problem wasn't so much that
it was too blue, but that there was NO red. And the over all image was
slightly darker than normal. I fiddled with the color temp settings, but
couldn't get it any better. That's when I tried Paul's suggestion and
looked at the cable.
Now the kids have a better video card than what they had before :-)
 
JohnB said:
I have an older Dell computer - Dimension 8200 - that is running XP
Pro. The PC is being used by one of the kids. The PC is 6+ years
old, but it works fine for kids.

The other day they reported that the screen "looked blue". And
sure enough the image has a blue tint to it. This computer has the
original 15" flat panel monitor. I swapped that monitor with
another, known good, flat panel. The image still looked blue. So I
bought a new, fairly inexpensive video card. I put the card in,
expecting to see everything back to normal but... the screen image
still was much bluer than normal... although it looked like it was
slightly better than before.
This is very strange. The new video card couldn't possibly be the
problem. What are the odds of a 6 year old and brand new card both
having the same problem; everything has a blue tint to it. I
checked the display settings in Windows on the new card. Everything is at
factory defaults.
Anyone ever seen this? What could be wrong? I thought the only
thing that affected the screen image was either the monitor or the
display card.
Click to expand...
There are all sorts of ways to foul up the color.

1) Broken wire in VGA cable or connector pin.
2) Sync setting. I've noticed discoloration on a monitor
when the video device uses sync-on-green.
3) Someone throws a third party gamma tool into the system
(one computer here has a copy of some Adobe gamma thing).
4) Enter video card control panel, use the color adjustments.
Mine has gamma adjustments per color, if desired. Color
temperature setting is another one (even CRTs had that, and
you could get a blue tint from changing the setting). In
my case, I use the ATI Catalyst Control Panel, as it came
with my ATI graphics card.

I would have assumed a hardware problem as well, if I knew
that no one had added software or fiddled with stuff.
Click to expand...

M.I.5¾ said:
Further to Paul's answer, you may like to note that most monitors
have what is called a 'colour temperature' setting. The higher the
number of 'K' the bluer the image. Have you checked this and if
necessay set it to a warmer colour (lower K).

For example, mine is set to 6500K which a reasonable white. Setting it to
9300K give the image a very blue cast. As for how
you access the colour temperature menu? For that you will have to
consult the book of instructions for your monitor.
Click to expand...
Turned out to be a bent pin in the cable.
After looking at it some more I noticed that the problem wasn't so
much that it was too blue, but that there was NO red. And the over
all image was slightly darker than normal. I fiddled with the
color temp settings, but couldn't get it any better. That's when I
tried Paul's suggestion and looked at the cable.
Now the kids have a better video card than what they had before :-)
Click to expand...

You originally stated you swapped monitors - so you left the same cable
connected even when you swapped monitors?
 
Yes. The cable detaches at the monitor.
Now if I hadn't of kept the same cable, I probably would have assumed that
it was the old monitor, that was the problem.
 
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