Refreshing, isn't it?

Plugging in...

Does the reader know anything about refresh rates on monitors? Does the reader HAVE to know about them? Not usually, except, of course, when they do need to know about them.

When all is right with a computer monitor, the type, and graphics appear stable, crisp and easy to read. Games play fast and animation is smooth. But a Tutor client reported something not quite right in monitor land: wavy, wiggling, jiggling occurring on their desktop monitor. It didn't happen all the time, and the condition could not be intiated by the user.

The monitor was unplugged, the cable pulled out and both reconnected to no avail. The monitor shifted the entire contents of the screen ever-upward with little, jiggly movements. Whacking the monitor on the side did no good either, the client reported!

This unwelcome behavior could have been caused by several things: the monitor was failing, the video card adapter that the monitor plugs into was failing, or... the REFRESH rate was too low or high. A quick way to test the monitor and video card is to try another monitor, should a spare one be available. Surprisingly, many people do have spare monitors from older computers that haven't been disposed of. This client did NOT have any spare monitors to try, so the Tutor looked for a software setting, AND found the solution: the refresh rate was set too low for the monitor.

The refresh rate (most commonly the "vertical refresh rate") is the number of times in a second that a monitor draws the data. Set too low or too high, when the monitor is "refreshing" the screen, it can be seen by the user, resulting in wavy lines, blurriness, flicker or faint lines on the screen.

In less than a minute, the annoying screen motion was contained by changing the refresh rate to a higher setting. The client was pleased the sea-sicky feeling was gone when looking at the monitor, no draminine required, stable text and graphics were back on the horizon.

ALWAYS REMEMBER: before calling for help - is it plugged in, is the REFRESH setting OK, and is it turned on?

Unplugged