Fires of Heaven Guild Message Board - View Single Post

Eomer · 03-17-2005, 12:35 PM

Long story short, we just replaced all the workstations in our office. All of the monitors were good, cept for one guy's office where I had noticed it sometimes shimmered. It's about 5 years old, a 17" CRT. I noticed that it was doing that a year ago, but the guy is computer retarded and I've only ever observed him using it to play Solitaire (which I promptly removed the shortcut for). New guy is now moving into his office, and with the replacement of his tower I was going to get a new monitor. With the old one hooked up, the computer strangely enough was exhibiting some very odd behavior, running very slowly, icons flickering on and off etc.

The computer tech dude who's been doing all the work thought there might be something wrong with the computer itself, but then when we hooked up a different monitor to it the problems went away. So bizarrely enough somehow the monitor was fucking with the computer. I didn't even think that was possible, but hey, learn something new every day.

So I went and got a new 17" CRT, and when I first installed it it seemed fine. Then the guy rearranged his desk a bit, and wanted me to show him something on the computer. Right away I noticed the goddamn shimmering was back, on a brand new monitor. After checking his desk for any large magnets or motors or anything, it hit me that our building's electrical panels are directly on the other side of that wall, so basically within 6" of where the monitor is. The old monitor might actually be perfectly fine, after all (haven't checked). Considering the new one was like 150CDN and the store is kind of a fly by night operation, it's not worth returning the monitor, we'll just use it elsewhere.

So my question is, do LCD's get affected by magnetic fields? The guy is going to see if he can rearrange a few things on his desk and move the monitor, I don't imagine that it will need to be moved very much, good old inverse cubic functions and all. But in the event he can't, would a LCD be immune to that? I am not so familiar with exactly how they work, but my impression is that they don't have nearly as much to do with charged particles and magnetic fields and electrons like a CRT monitor does.

Anyone had an experience like this before?

03-17-2005, 12:35 PM	#1 (permalink)
Eomer Registered User Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 9,488 +25 Internets	Electrical Panels + LCD's = ? Long story short, we just replaced all the workstations in our office. All of the monitors were good, cept for one guy's office where I had noticed it sometimes shimmered. It's about 5 years old, a 17" CRT. I noticed that it was doing that a year ago, but the guy is computer retarded and I've only ever observed him using it to play Solitaire (which I promptly removed the shortcut for). New guy is now moving into his office, and with the replacement of his tower I was going to get a new monitor. With the old one hooked up, the computer strangely enough was exhibiting some very odd behavior, running very slowly, icons flickering on and off etc. The computer tech dude who's been doing all the work thought there might be something wrong with the computer itself, but then when we hooked up a different monitor to it the problems went away. So bizarrely enough somehow the monitor was fucking with the computer. I didn't even think that was possible, but hey, learn something new every day. So I went and got a new 17" CRT, and when I first installed it it seemed fine. Then the guy rearranged his desk a bit, and wanted me to show him something on the computer. Right away I noticed the goddamn shimmering was back, on a brand new monitor. After checking his desk for any large magnets or motors or anything, it hit me that our building's electrical panels are directly on the other side of that wall, so basically within 6" of where the monitor is. The old monitor might actually be perfectly fine, after all (haven't checked). Considering the new one was like 150CDN and the store is kind of a fly by night operation, it's not worth returning the monitor, we'll just use it elsewhere. So my question is, do LCD's get affected by magnetic fields? The guy is going to see if he can rearrange a few things on his desk and move the monitor, I don't imagine that it will need to be moved very much, good old inverse cubic functions and all. But in the event he can't, would a LCD be immune to that? I am not so familiar with exactly how they work, but my impression is that they don't have nearly as much to do with charged particles and magnetic fields and electrons like a CRT monitor does. Anyone had an experience like this before?