Monitor Refresh Rate ???

[sammy5gs]

Ok - I have come across an old 17" CompUSA monitor (CRT) from way back in the day. I say well over 4 years old, but it is still chuggin with no signs of wear at all. Now, the question - is there an app/method I can use to determine what the maximum refresh rate allowed on this monitor would be. Unfortunately, there is no tag/SN on the monitor, so I would venture that the only other way would be through a stand-alone app. Any thoughts?

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

no tag no s/n how about a model ?

I am not sure but maybe power strip could read in the moniter and see something, but alot of applications will read what is provided by the .ini that you choose to load, so I say try powerstrip and see

 

[Taurus]

unless the monitor is plug-n-play, no program is going to be able to get any info from it. but if it is pnp, windows' "plug and play monitor" driver will detect it's resolutions and refresh rates automatically.

 

[Eck]

Why can't you just try to keep increasing the refresh rate until windows won't let you? That's what I'd do.

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by sammy5gs
Ok - I have come across an old 17" CompUSA monitor (CRT) from way back in the day. I say well over 4 years old, but it is still chuggin with no signs of wear at all. Now, the question - is there an app/method I can use to determine what the maximum refresh rate allowed on this monitor would be. Unfortunately, there is no tag/SN on the monitor, so I would venture that the only other way would be through a stand-alone app. Any thoughts?

what kermit said is the way to go basically...

unfortunately if winxp does not autodetect and read from the .inf on the monitor you are a little screwed...

there should be SOMETHING somewhere that has info on the monitor or the tube...

if you keep increasing the refresh like eck has suggested you are likely to end up with a burnt tube... w/o a .inf for maximum refresh info there is no guarantee that winxp is setting the appropriate parameters...

likely you may well be able to max out @ around 1024x768 @ 75 and perhaps 1280x1024 @ a lower 65-70 rate...

it sounds safe enough to me...

 

[Taurus]

Re: Re: Monitor Refresh Rate ???

Originally posted by Sazar
likely you may well be able to max out @ around 1024x768 @ 75 and perhaps 1280x1024 @ a lower 65-70 rate...

it sounds safe enough to me...

i concur. 1024x768 @ 75hz sounds like a good, safe, eye strain-free setting for an older monitor.

but the fact that there's no model number anywhere on it seems strange to me.

 

[Sazar]

Re: Re: Re: Monitor Refresh Rate ???

Originally posted by taurus
i concur. 1024x768 @ 75hz sounds like a good, safe, eye strain-free setting for an older monitor.

but the fact that there's no model number anywhere on it seems strange to me.

yah.. not seeing even an s/n is odd...

 

[Eck]

Re: Re: Monitor Refresh Rate ???

Originally posted by Sazar
if you keep increasing the refresh like eck has suggested you are likely to end up with a burnt tube... w/o a .inf for maximum refresh info there is no guarantee that winxp is setting the appropriate parameters...

On my machine, it loaded the "Default Monitor" and if I tried to increase it past the 85Hz @ 1024x768 my monitor would just display "sync out of range" until windows puts it back.

Are you saying on his monitor it would likely display it and run, and basically be an overclocked monitor?

 

[Sazar]

Re: Re: Re: Monitor Refresh Rate ???

Originally posted by Eck
On my machine, it loaded the "Default Monitor" and if I tried to increase it past the 85Hz @ 1024x768 my monitor would just display "sync out of range" until windows puts it back.

Are you saying on his monitor it would likely display it and run, and basically be an overclocked monitor?

effictively...

running a monitor out of spec can very easily burn out the tube for crts...

your monitor likely has a .inf that the video card was reading and thats where you had the out of range going on...

it is possible with older monitors there is no such info being communicated wth the gfx card and the os...

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Yes be carefull here older moniters did not have the safety switch displaying out of range they would just kick in the refresh rate and all you get is a bunch of jumbled lines if your lucky not to blow the moniter, so without the proper .ini it is very hard to know where the limit is, but from past trails I know that if you used that moniter on win98 you would have a good chance of getting the info directley from the moniter with powerstrip, but XP is a pain for that we all have had the hastle of having to find a way past the default 60hz and this also blocks access with powerstrip when trying to get through the OS into the moniter, but I would say any 17inch should be good at 1024-768 75hz rare would be the one that was 17inch and not able to pull a 75hz at that res. And as for the default moniter .ini your using you would be better off getting the proper .ini from the company that built your moniter or at least load a plug and play .ini in XP

 

[Eck]

Already did. Just using "default monitor" to show that it didn't have anything loaded...

 

[LeeJend]

My older 17 inch monitor fried when a driver update under Win 2000 defaulted it to 1024x768 @ 75 Hz instead of 60 Hz. Only took about 2 weeks to kill it and there was no overheated smell or any other indication.

The vertical transformers in older monitors can't take the heat at higher refresh rates and fry. Replacing them is not economical so the monitor is gone.

The only safe bet on a 4 year old monitor at 1024x768 is 60 Hz. That's going to get rough on the eyes. And considering it's a compusa generic I wouldn't expect anything better.