Strange display problem (blurred display along vertical strips)

[bippukt]

I am having a strange problem with my display since the last week or so. The display is blurred along "vertical strips", for lack of a better term. Thankfully, until now I can't notice any problem in my games and images. The problem is most visible when reading text on a light background. The text is perfectly readable, BTW. I think the most accurate way to describe it would be to say that it resembles lightly smeared ink on my monitor. The normal and "smeared" vertical strips occur alternately at quite regular intervals, as far as I can see. I used to get this kind of display in Firefox in Fedora Core 6 a few years ago (XP display was normal).

My specs are as follows:
-Intel core i5 750 with 8 MB cache
-Intel DP55WB motherboard
-Transcend 4GB DDR3 1333MHz
-Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.12 HDD
-CoolerMaster Extreme Power Duo 600W PCAR
-XFX GTS 250 512MB
-LG LCD 19"@1440x900 (L192WS)
-OS: Win XP SP3
-Local case with unsatisfactory air-flow but quite low ambient temps right now

I have already removed my Nvidia Drivers using Driver Sweeper and re-installed the latest video driver suggested by XFX. It did not help.

I have been monitoring the temps using RealTemp and the CPU temps are quite low at around 20-30C. The GPU temp also seem okay at around 48-50C@idle, although they used to be 42-43C a month ago when the PC was brand new. I have not checked for dust but I doubt it is a problem at the moment.

I have also noticed that if the PC is switched off for a long time and then switched on, it takes 2-3 seconds to power up. Sometimes it just stops at the 'XP loading' screen - pressing the reset button always fixes this. And if it is of any importance, the binary check display (the E7 etc displayed when showing the Intel screen upon booting) is quite slow to begin. The benchmarks with 3DMark 06 are quite good.

This is frustrating - maybe I should just buy myself a console for games and use a crappy laptop for the rest of the work Any help and advice on this matter would be really helpful

 

[wa1]

have another monitor or another card? u can try both of them to make sure which one has trouble...
make sure all the cables are properly inserted too.

 

[king game]

try the drivers in nvidia's web site

 

[bippukt]

I tried to connect a Dell laptop to my monitor, but somehow messed it up and it went blank with the message "out of range - 77.2kHz/120Hz".

So I reconnected my CPU again and reduced the frequency to 59Hz. Hooray! No more blurred lines!!!

While this is great news, I have no idea why this happened because I have been using the 75Hz frequency for a long time without any problems. Bloody PCs - I think I will be recommending consoles to everybody from now on.

If anyone has any idea what the problem might be, please do tell

 

[jasobnd]

i dont know if this is right but sometimes you can get settings to force tv detection. Never worked with this though. 120hz is prob out of your moniters range??? perhaps it caused a short out or somink random in your moniter ? im just shooting in the dark here btw.