Crazy screen warp on Macintel... suspecting conspiray theories...

[catani]

This week something crazy has been going on in our house. First of all my step-daughter, who has a brand new PC (I know poor her) saw her whole screen slowly fade away into a black hole. I'm not kidding, it just disappeared, well not the actual screen of course, but the image on the screen. Since then it's possible to switch on the computer as normal and get as far as to the windows login page, after which there is only a black screen again. We swapped the screen with another computer and the same thing happened, so it shouldn't be a "funny" PC-virus.

Well over to the crazy part. (A PC going ape-shit is not that crazy nor even unusual)
Today as i was iSquinting some avi-files suddenly, with iTunes open, the screen of my four-weeks old Macintel 20" latest osx and stuff, became red from the top of the screen rapidly moving downwards and halfway changing into green. It kinda looked like when you're printing while some of of the colours are run out. I rebooted the computer and everything seems fine except for three very tiny black lines about 4 centimetres from the top.

I have absolutely NO IDEA what my computer did just then. This is about my 10th mac in some 15 years. And I've never seen this happen before. Could the PC problem and this problem be related? Or is it just a twist of fate that it happens on the same week... Is it possible that this could be an electrical problem? We moved into this house in the autumn. I think about electrical fields.... (well actually I even think of aliens and conspiracy theories..)

Would be very happy to hear if anyone heard about this thing happen before. Of course if it happens again I will take a screen shot and submit. It looked creepy...

Kind Regards, Sonja

::alien:: ??

 

[scruffy]

Your screenshot won't show the problem - the OS is sending the right signals to the video card (and that's what a screenshot grabs). What's happening is, either the video card, or more likely the monitor itself, has a loose connection, fried component, or short circuit, and is messing things up at the hardware level.

I've seen this happen from time to time, mostly with rather old monitors, or brand new ones.

 

[catani]

Ok, thanks for your quick answer. Should I wait and see if it happens again or should I take it to service straight away?

Kind REgards and easter greetings,
Sonja

PS. sure it couldn't be aliens???

 

[Dark Dexter]

The fading out of your daughter's screen could likekly be her video card is overheating. It also may be a defective videocard in her computer. I've had both of these happen to me. If it is still under warranty take it back.

As far as you iMac, could be just a random fluke. My monitor (not an iMac, but hooked up to a PowerMac G3, Windows Gaming PC, and Linux Computer) has a similar issue that I'll boot up ANY of my three computers on it and it will wash out one of the three colors, red, green, or blue. I used to reboot like mad and screw around with refresh rates.. what fixed it? Turning it off and turining it back on It could just be a similar LCD issue. Good luck with it though.