I have a Dell Latitude c810 laptop. I had Red Hat 7.3 on it. I used
the drivers available last year from Nvidia. I dual booted it with XP.
Now I just have XP.

I'm afraid running Linux, or more specifically the Nvidia driver for the
graphics card and monitor on my laptop, has damaged the screen.

I know that it's possible to damage your screen if when installing Linux
you select the wrong parameters for the driver/screen. It says so in
XConfig (I think).

Whenever I log out of Linux, there is a few moments before the login
screen comes up. During this time, there is a white screen and there
are bright, bad things happening in the area of the first few rows of
pixels at the top of the screen for a few moments. It's clearly a wierd
thing that shouldn't happen.

Now, I've noticed (running XP) that along that top area of the screen,
there is something like we used to call "burn." When we left old CRT
monitors on the same screen all the time, it got so you could see a
ghost of that screen even when looking at a different screen. The
pattern (usually the mac menu at the top) had burned the actual CRT
pixels.

This looks just like that. I see a faint ghost of the top of an XP
window, with zoom box, the close box (X), the minimize box, and the
outline of the whole top edge of the window. Discoloration (?)
continues to the left still along that top strip of monitor. This is
permanent.

Has the monitor been damaged? I can get it replaced, but will it happen
again? Anybody know of problems from the Nvidia drivers, or anything
else that could cause this?

Thanks for any help,
Jim

In article <jimkkREMOVEME-4EB709.23201629062003@visonmassif.rs.itd.umich.edu >, Jim Kroger wrote:

Many years ago, there used to be a few crappy monitors and LCD
screens that could be damaged. Nothing I've seen in the past
10 years or so could be damaged by misconfiguring an X server,
but that's mostly CRTs -- I've only had a couple LCD displays
to play with.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Of course, you
at UNDERSTAND about the PLAIDS
visi.com in the SPIN CYCLE --

Jim Kroger wrote:

.... i've never heard this happen on a modern machine/distro. i know
in the old days, you had to be cautious. have you checked here
for info on your box: http://www.linux-laptop.net/

PS - please dont post to more than 3 groups.
..

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael J. Tobler: motorcyclist, surfer, # Black holes result
skydiver, and author: "Inside Linux", # when God divides the
"C++ HowTo", "C++ Unleashed" # universe by zero

"Jim Kroger" <jimkkREMOVEME@umich.edu> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:jimkkREMOVEME-4EB709.23201629062003@visonmassif.rs.itd.umich.edu ...
Check the forums at Dell. Here in Europe it is quite an issue: Dell has
problems with LCDs that show burn in. AFAIK it is a manufacturing problem
and should be covered by warranty.

Georg

Jim Kroger wrote:

The damage you're thinking of is caused when you tell the computer to
use a scan rate that the monitor cannot handle. This does not cause
phosphor burn-in, but it is certainly possible for it to burn out
horizontal and/or vertical deflection circuitry if you try to run it
at a frequency it isn't designed to handle. I don't think this is an
issue with newer monitors, as they are designed to detect this condition
and simply blank the screen rather than blindly try to run the
deflection circuits at the wrong freq.

This just sounds like the video driver is changing modes and re-
initializing. I've seen that several times here, and I don't think
it's anything to worry about. As long as it doesn't persist for
an extended period of time, you should be okay.

If you're seeing a ghost of an XP screen, then it sounds more like
you left an XP window open for a long time. I can't see how a Linux
driver could possibly cause an XP burn pattern to show up on the
monitor...

If in fact you're seeing a phosphor burn pattern, then yes,
the phosphors have been damaged (and I know of no way to get
rid of the problem short of CRT replacement). This is irritating
to look at, but should not detract from the basic functionality
of the monitor, so depending on how bad it irritates you,
you should still be able to use the monitor.

I'm running nVidia here on a multiscan monitor, and have never
seen this problem show up. Gut feeling is that something else is
going on here and that it's not a Linux or nVidia problem.


--
Steve Martin, CPBE CBNT

i've set the wrong configutation a lot on my Linux box running a sony
monitor. It was only then that I realised the risk involved. Thankfully,
nothing went wrong

"Steve Martin" <ecprod@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:cleNa.11694$eW6.9419@fe03.atl2.webusenet.com. ..

I personally, do not rely on XP screensavers. I have my screen saver on
every 1 minute of idle use. However, one day I left my office for 2hours. It
turned out my screen saver never activated! It was just a still screen of
Office and the start menu task bar.
I now either set screen saver mode on highest priority on the task manager
OR manually activate screen saver

"Steve Martin" <ecprod@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:cleNa.11694$eW6.9419@fe03.atl2.webusenet.com. ..