I was recently here for some help with some spyware issues, and everything is finally fixed, but I started having this monitor issue today, and I don't know if it's somehow related. I doubt it is though. What it's doing is weird. It's kinda of like it grows and shrinks, but only in a left and right direction. And only in a very minimal increment. Also, on the far left and right edges of the screen, things are very slightly out of focus. For example, the text in my favorites window of IE, is slightly blurry. I've tried searching google for any similar problems, but can't find any. I don't know if this would be a monitor issue, a video card issue, or softwar issue. The only other recent change, other than your assistance removing spyware, is that I purchased simcity 4, and installed that yesterday. I know it would make sense that simcity caused this problem, since the problem occured immediately after installing it, but I don't really understand what it could have changed. Any thoughts here?

update -
When i click the button on my monitor to bring up the adjustments, it shows the current refresh rates. horizontal is 94.1, and vertical is 84.9. The ati software doesn't allow me to set them individually, it's just one setting, which is currently set to 85. Could this have something to do with my problem? And why is the horizontal so much higher like that?

You might try reinstalling the ATI drivers after using the ATI driver cleaner.

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...ge&folderID=27

the newest version of the catalyst driver does not support my video card. Also, what do you mean by driver cleaner? I looked around at that link you gave, but I dont' see anything called a driver cleaner.

What is your video card?

Sorry about the Cleaner. ATI used to have a Cleaner listed but they have updated and it is not there now.

The main point is to uninstall your ATI drivers before reinstalling.

Here is a basic guide:

The ati3duag.dll file is part of the drivers for your ATI video card.
Hopefully the issue can be corrected by installing new ones....

Updating video card drivers can solve most gaming issues. Here's some
simple abc's to always keep in mind. a. Shut off download accelerators,
firewalls and antivirus programs when downloading or installing updates;
b. Check for game patches: www.avault.com/pcrl/patches_list.asp?letter=a
c. Make sure you meet the game's minimum video and system requirements;
d. Check for known issues with your video card at the game's web site. :-)

1. Before you update your drivers, I recommend that you update DirectX
from: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.aspx

Please look over the ATI articles about their latest driver on the download page.
They list Installation Tips, Fixes, and Release Notes with important information.

2. Download the latest Catalyst driver for ATI Radeon or All in Wonder Card:

Win XP/2000: http://ati.com/support/drivers/winxp/radeonwdm-xp.html
Win 98/Me: http://ati.com/support/drivers/winme/radeonwdm-me.html

3. Save the .exe driver in My Documents\My Drivers\ATI

4. Restart the computer in Safe Mode by pressing the F8 key
about once every second as it's rebooting to pick Safe Mode.

5. Click Start / (settings) Control Panel / System / Hardware
Device Manager / expand +Display Adapters / right click on
the adapter, pick "Uninstall", and click No if asked to reboot.

6. Use Control Panel / Add-Remove programs to uninstall the
previous driver (exe)software which may have been installed.

7. Restart the computer in Safe Mode by pressing the F8 key
about once every second as it's rebooting to pick Safe Mode.

8. If Windows prompts you to install the adapter, click "Cancel".

9. Double click the ATI driver we saved to My Documents\ My
Drivers\ATI folder in step 3 to install.it. If it complains about
Windows Logo Certification just click "Continue". This is normal.

10. After you reboot, go to Control Panel / Display / Settings and
choose 32 bit Color Quality, and 800x600 or higher Resolution.

TROUBLESHOOTING:

Test your drivers using DXDiag: Click Start / Run / type: DXDIAG
Click the "Test" buttons in the Display, Sound, Music & Network Tabs;
If any of the Display options are Disabled and you cannot Enable them,
your most likely solution would be to update your Chipset Drivers as per
my website: http://www3.sympatico.ca/nibblesnbits/Video.html#v11

Your program might not support dual monitors, or "dual head" video cards
You can disable the extra video output in your display properties control
panel. Click Start>Settings>Control Panel>Display>Settings>Advanced.

Along with your Video card, Sound Cards, Motherboard Chipsets,
and Video Monitors may also require updated drivers. Even your
motherboard's BIOS may need to be updated for compatibility with
your Video card. These steps are listed at: http://NibblesNbitsVideo.tk

Perhaps the old ATI drivers did not completely uninstall. If that's the
case, use these utility to completely uninstall the drivers and go to step 7:
http://www.driverheaven.net/cleaner/ (works for all cards including nvidia)

The latest video drivers sometime don't work with a particular game.
(Check the Video suggestions in the readme.txt file in your game folder/CD)
If there's no suggestions, try an older (WHQL) driver, and/or if you still
experience problems try a Beta driver, or even an Omega driver instead:

BETA Drivers: http://download.guru3d.com/
OMEGA Drivers: http://www.omegacorner.com/

There you have it, if you have any questions feel free to post them! :-)

Windows XP MVP Shell / User Jimmy S.

My vid card is a few years old, it's a radeon 9200 256mb, the agp version. My version of the catalyst driver is 6.14.10.6444. I'm pretty sure my directx is current, it's version 9.0c. I'm hesitant to install a new driver at this point, things have been working fine for a long time with my current setup. And when I do play simcity4, I don't have any problems in the game at all. The only times I notice the problems is when I'm at my desktop, or browsing web pages. Would it be possible that my monitor itself is malfunctioning? The top of it does feel quite warm to the touch, but I don't know if it was warm before or not. I've been wanting to upgrade my vid card for a while now, and maybe I should just use this opportunity to do so. I've been fairly pleased with this card over the years, so I'd probably want to stick with ati. Do you have any recommendations for a reasonably priced replacement?

Is it a LCD or CRT monitor? Both do get quite warm normally. Not untouchable hot but quite warm.

Do you have another monitor to try?

What about experimenting with the Screen Resolution?

Does the monitor, if CRT, have a Degauss button?

Your card has some quite good reviews despite its' age. The latest Radeon AGP series was/is 9800.

Since then the PCI_E format has received the most advances. I would suggest upgrading the motherboard as well to accept PCI_E if that is economically feasible. It is reported that the data speed rate from AGP 8X to PCI_E is doubled even on the cheapest PCI_E cards.

http://www.ati.com/products/gamer.html

It's a 19" crt. I do not have another monitor to try, I pulled my old one out of the closet, but it wont turn on, i believe suffered some water damage a while back. My current one has a degauss feature, and I've tried that many times. As far as a new card goes, I'm pretty sure my mobo has a pcie slot, but I could be wrong. My mobo is an asus a7v8x-x. Upgrading both right now isn't really an option, but it might be something for me to keep in mind for the future. I'm going to see if a friend of mine can bring his monitor over, just to rule out my monitor being the problem. If you can think of anything else, please let me know. thanks.

According to the manual that board has just the AGP 8X slot for graphics.

ftp://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/s...61_a7n8x-x.pdf

You could try uninstalling Sim City 4 just to test that. Again perhaps fiddle with various screen resolutions. I think of this re: your refresh rates etc.

ok, i'm not surprised that I was wrong about the mobo. I've gone through the entire range of resolutions, and tried changing the refresh rates from 85 hz to 75 hz at various resolutions. I'll try uninstalling simcity, if you think that might change anything, but I p;robably won't get to it until tomorrow. thanks again.

Well, just wanted to give you an update. I tried uninstalling simcity, and it didn't accomplish anything. So, later last night I reinstalled it, and figured I'd play for a while. But, upon starting the game, the intro screen came up all out of focus, and of center on the screen. Then the whole image starting moving back towards the center of the screen. Then "click". the monitor turned itself off, and would not turn back on. I tried unplugging it, and plugging it back in, and it just went "click.......click". Even the power indicator light on the front would not come on. So, here I am, typing this while looking at a brand new 19" lcd monitor. I wanted another crt, but I went 5 differant places today, and nobody had one. It seems like all my problems were with my old monitor, this one is working just fine thus far. I guess it was just it's time to die. I don't really like the lcd, I bought a cheaper one, and although the resolution is the same as my old crt, I just don't like the way that text appears on the lcd. Oh well, I'll get used to it. Thanks for your help, even though I wasn't able to save my old crt.

eric