"Out Of Scan Area"? HELP!!

My brother built a PC for me about a year ago and it has been working great up until a week ago. I recently moved into a new apartment and for about 4 days, my computer worked fine in the new apartment. Then one day out of the blue I went to boot up and just as windows XP was starting to load, the monitor went blank and a strange message box came up that said " Out of Frequency Area". After a countdown, the screen goes blank and stays that way. I tried a different monitor and a similiar message pops up, "Out of Scan Area". I moved the computer to another part of the apartment and the same thing happened. I tried a different power cord, nothing. So, I took it over to my brother's house (the one who built it for me) and it worked fine when hooked up to his monitor. He loaded the newest version of XP while I was there and checked for viruses and I took it home only to get the same message again. I tried to go into safe-mode and just as it was loading, up popped the message again. It won't let me do anything. It's like it starts booting up and loses juice or something. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what this could be and why it's happening? I can't do a thing with it. It's useless. Why would it work for my brother at his house but not mine...and why would it work fine for 4 days in my apartment and then nothing? I'm lost without my computer.....help anyone!!

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315614/DA/. tell your brother to check out this link. possibly monitor issue with video card, this describes some of the issues you are having, it is all i can think of right now will check around some more, also ask him if he has a video card he can put in you comp and use it on your monitor it, maybe just that the monitor you have is burned out, it is funny though it worked on his monitor and not you two monitors. post back if you get any more info

 

Thank you. He thought that perhaps it was the video card as well which is why I tried to go into "safety mode" to reinstall that part of the installation cd that I had at home. But when I got home, it wouldn't even let me complete loading in "safety mode" before the message came up again. The weird stuff seems to always happen to me. I thought perhaps there was something in an adjoining apartment around me that was interferring with the transmission because it was all of a sudden after 4 days that it just stopped working properly but I brought home a laptop from work and it's working just fine. Could be a different frequency. I don't know. Thanks for you help!

 

is this a CRT or an LCD monitor? also post specs of your system

Have you tried degaussing the monitor?

 

The OS is Windows XP Professional.
The memory I believe is 512 meg.
The processor is an AMD Athelon.
1.8 gigahertz.

I think both monitors I have are LCD.

What is "degaussing"?

 

AFAIK ... if they are LCDs then you won't be able to degauss them ... wouldn't matter anyway

LCDs are thin(all laptops use LCDs) .... while CRTs take up alot of desk space, TVs use CRTs

 

Then I think they are CRT's. They're big clunky monitors. So, how do you degausse them?

 

it's in the monitors display panel ... .like on the front of your monitor there should be a power button and a few other buttons ... one of them should bring up an on screen menu ... or there is a dedicated degauss button ... if it is an on screen menu there should be a degauss function somewhere in there ... it's different for each monitor

if I'm correct ... I forget the exact technical reasoning but CRTs are very sensitive to the .. OK here's webopedias definition:

in other words CRTs are sensitive to magnetism ... and degaussing is the only way I know of to fix it ... although I am not 100% certain this will fix your problem ... maybe there's alot of iron in your apartments construction

 

Unless your sitting on a powerstation,emf won't affect your monitor,your problem is most likely your gfx card producing a refresh rate too high for your monitor,this could be due to a driver that is too new for your monitor installed by a new version of windows,try installing the drivers for your monitor in safe mode,or the drivers for your gfx card.

 

Could a microwave oven cause this? The night before this happened, I placed the microwave on a new stand next to my computer desk.

 

I highly doubt it .... what monitor do you have? should say right on the front panel near the power button somewhere

 

My main one is a Gateway and the other is an Art Media?

 

What about the model number? Are they really old monitors? like from the early/mid 90s?

 

The Gateway is about 4 years old and the other one is about 8 years or so.

 

try lowering the refresh rate to 70Hz ... right click desktop>properties>settings>advanced(make sure the resolution is something your monitor can handle .. try 800x600 for troubleshooting purposes)>monitor> .. there will be a box called "Monitor Settings" and a drop down menu containing the refresh rate settings ... also be sure that the "Hide modes that this monitor cannot display" box is checked

another thing is make sure your monitors drivers are installed .. if you don't know what model number your monitor is ask your brother

 

I wish I could even attempt to do any of those things but I would have to be able to boot up first. That still doesn't explain why the monitor has worked fine for well over a year and it worked for at least 4 days in the new place before the error message came up.

 

I suggest you do a power drain on the system. That is disconnect the tower (system unit) from the power source and unplug everything from the tower. Then press and hold the power button for 10sec. Release the button and then connect only the monitor, keyboard and mouse. Check whether its booting.

If it is not booting then, if you are using a video card then reseat the video card.

Also if the monitors are working by doing a self test on them. That is in most cases just disconnect the monitor from the tower and then turn on the monitor and see if you get any messages on them. Check with the user guide of the monitor.

 

you're borrowing a laptop? try connecting the gateway monitor up to it .... maybe the monitor just quit .. though that would be odd since both don't work

 

The monitors do work. I did the self test on them. I think I'm just going to take it back to my brother's and have him try everybody's suggestion