Shakey screen is shakey.

[Arphahat]

I have a ViewSonic CRT that I am using until I can get around to getting a "real" monitor. I just moved to a new house and the weirdest thing keeps happening. Every once in a while, the onscreen view "shakes" and does so quite a while. I have a second CRT that I also hooked up to have two monitors and they both seem to shake at the same time. It is really distracting, and kind of makes me nauseous.

Anyone have an idea about what might be causing this? I didn't have any problems until I started using them in the new house.

[ReaverX]

Did you try using degauss? Is there something large made of metal very close to the monitor? I know for a fact that CRT monitors had that problem a lot.

[Arphahat]

Yeah, I tried degaussing, and I turned off the other monitor, just to be safe.

It is right next to a window, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of metal there.

[Karak]

I thought for a second this was about poorly done shakey cam and was about to Quote my brothers distaste for District 9.

I would also suggest Degauss

Otherwise some kind of interference for sure.

[nabokovfan87]

new one for me, check the refresh rate, pixel clock and stuff like that along with the cords and stuff. For some reason I think the power in the new house is causing it, are you using a surge protector?

[Arphahat]

Yeah, I have a surge protector. What is odd is that it isn't consistent. For the past several hours, it has been fine, but all of a sudden, it is getting shakey again, and nothing I can see has changed.

[J Arcane]

Could be a bad outlet or bad lines.

Is your strip just a surge protector or is it a proper UPS, with line conditioning?

[ParTime]

Is there a cell phone nearby? I've seen phones interfere with CRTs before, but usually in short bursts, not a prolonged shaking...

[Cactaur]

Microwave oven?

[biosc1]

Tinfoil. Put it up now. They are watching.

[Mr. Murphy]

Could anyone in the building be running a vacuum cleaner or hair dryer or something? Is it happening when the fridge kicks in? I'd get your wires checked before your house burns down.

[Arphahat]

Originally Posted by J Arcane

Could be a bad outlet or bad lines.

Is your strip just a surge protector or is it a proper UPS, with line conditioning?

Surge protector. Switched it out with another one and it seems to be the same problem.

Originally Posted by ParTime

Is there a cell phone nearby? I've seen phones interfere with CRTs before, but usually in short bursts, not a prolonged shaking...

No, no cell phone, but good idea.

Originally Posted by Cactaur

Microwave oven?

No, microwave is pretty far away and not being run right now.

Originally Posted by biosc1

Tinfoil. Put it up now. They are watching.

Heh... uh... would tin foil help?

Originally Posted by Mr. Murphy

Could anyone in the building be running a vacuum cleaner or hair dryer or something? Is it happening when the fridge kicks in? I'd get your wires checked before your house burns down.

No, nothing else is running that I can tell. We had the house inspected, and it is only about 5 years old, so it meets modern building code. And, we had an electrician install some extra outlets in the basement, so I'm pretty confident that it isn't a wiring issue.

Any other guesses?

[nabokovfan87]

I had a monitor, crt, that used to shake until it warmed up, that's the closest I can come to any sort of help other then saying it has to be power related if it didn't happen at the old house. Get some sort of meter or something and see if you have too many rooms on one circuit. I know here, my moms, sisters, and my room are all on one, so when they use hair dryers it kills the entire upstairs, if one of them, then I get a flicker when the dryer turns off/on.

[Scull]

I'm assuming you haven't solved this yet, so I'm throwing in my 2 bits. Odds are that you are sharing a circuit with a power hungry device. Anything from a hair dryer to the furnace could cause this sort of "dirty" power. The first thing I would try is to plug into a different outlet that you KNOW is on a different circuit to see if the problem persists. If it goes away then you know you are sharing a circuit with something else causing the interference and it will be time to track down and execute the offender.

If it persists then you may have dirty power through the whole house. Have fun fixing that. But it may just be the monitor dying, in which case, it is time to upgrade

One more option. Your lighting. Are you using florescents or CFLs? If so they are on the same refresh rate as most monitors and if they are out of sync you'll get this annoying flickering.

EDIT: You could look into a power cleaner (very different from a surge protector). They aren't cheap, but they may help.

[Arphahat]

Originally Posted by nabokovfan87

I had a monitor, crt, that used to shake until it warmed up, that's the closest I can come to any sort of help other then saying it has to be power related if it didn't happen at the old house. Get some sort of meter or something and see if you have too many rooms on one circuit. I know here, my moms, sisters, and my room are all on one, so when they use hair dryers it kills the entire upstairs, if one of them, then I get a flicker when the dryer turns off/on.

The room I'm in has its own circuit, so it isn't that, but good thought.

Originally Posted by Scull

I'm assuming you haven't solved this yet, so I'm throwing in my 2 bits. Odds are that you are sharing a circuit with a power hungry device. Anything from a hair dryer to the furnace could cause this sort of "dirty" power. The first thing I would try is to plug into a different outlet that you KNOW is on a different circuit to see if the problem persists. If it goes away then you know you are sharing a circuit with something else causing the interference and it will be time to track down and execute the offender.

Thanks for the ideas. Plugged into a different circuit and it seems unchanged. I ran an extension cable to a different room.

Originally Posted by Scull

If it persists then you may have dirty power through the whole house. Have fun fixing that. But it may just be the monitor dying, in which case, it is time to upgrade

I have two CRTs sitting fairly close to one another, and they both seem to be affected around the same times. Really, I am ready for some flat screens, but these are working well enough (aside from the occasional shaking).

I am very doubtful about the house having dirty power, since I just had an inspector checkout the house and I had an electrician in to fix some things and install some additional outlets.

Originally Posted by Scull

One more option. Your lighting. Are you using florescents or CFLs? If so they are on the same refresh rate as most monitors and if they are out of sync you'll get this annoying flickering.

EDIT: You could look into a power cleaner (very different from a surge protector). They aren't cheap, but they may help.

The only lighting is from the happy glow of the monitors, so there is no issue there.

As annoying as it is, I think my next test will need to be picking up one of these bastards and trying it in a different location. I'll grab my laptop for that experiment.

Edit: Just tried altering the refresh rate from 75 to 60 on both monitors and it seems to have stopped the shaking. I'll see if it comes back.

[nabokovfan87]

coolio, so maybe the monitors (at there age) just cant refresh shit fast enough and are skipping images/distorting things to look like they are shaking?