Stop That Flicker
On your computer’s monitor, that is! If your job involves sitting in front of a computer for hours on end, you may develop a pain in your eyes. Then again, it might not entirely be the long hours that’s causing it. For all you know, it could be your CRT monitor’s constant flickering that is tiring down your eye muscles. Besides taking frequent breaks from constantly viewing your monitor and focusing on distant objects every half an hour to avoid sore eyes, here is what you can do to stop the flickering!
Case #1
To increase the refresh rate of your CRT monitor and help prevent the monitor from flickering a little too continuously, follow these easy steps:
1.) Right click on your desktop.
2.) Select Properties.
3.) Click on the Settings tab.
4.) Click on the Advanced button.
5.) Open up the Monitor tab.
6.) Manually increase the Screen Refresh Rate, which is measured in Hertz. It looks like this:
Case #2
Follow the same procedure as above, but instead of doing steps 5 and 6, try the Troubleshoot tab after clicking on the Advanced button. You will notice that the flickering dies out when you move the slider to the fourth notch on the left. Also, don’t forget to press the Apply button after you move the slider. If you disable the Hardware Acceleration for your XP display properties (Control Panel, Display, Settings, Advanced, Troubleshoot) or at least lower it to the second bar from the left, you will really notice a significant improvement in the behavior of some of your programs.
Case #3
Here’s a scenario: You have just upgraded from the 2006 deluxe version to 2007 and you get a screen flicker only when your AVG antivirus is running a scan. If you pause the scan, everything is okay, but you cannot restart the scan, because the flickering is back and is worse. Since there is no remedy to this, here is what you can do. Run your AVG antivirus program at 3 a.m. (or sometime in the middle of the night). If you do that, you will probably not have a conflict with the antivirus software running while you are trying to use your computer. The same goes for any programs you use that require a scan of your PC.
Case #4
If there is a flicker only when you’re printing something out, you may need to change your printer spool characteristics. It’s best to go from Spool to Direct or vice versa. Or, if you’re printing to a USB device, unplug the device and try again.
Case #5
If none of the above suggestions work for you, you may have a faulty monitor. One way of finding out is to hook it up to another computer and see if the flicker remains. Or, hook up another monitor to your PC and see if that flickers. Now, if you have a laptop and the screen flickers, it could be because of the wireless adapter. Those are just a couple things you can check out on your own before you panic too much.
Happy problem solving!
~ Zahid H. Javali