Monitors
Your monitor is plugged into a
video card (also called a video adapter or graphics
adapter) in your computer. In most PCs, the video card fits into
an expansion slot on the motherboard. (A few PCs have the video card
built into the motherboard, but the end result is the same.)
Your monitor is
connected by a cable to the video card. (We'll look more closely at
that connection in the later section "Hooking Up Your New
Monitor.") The video card receives instructions from the
processor and sends them to the monitor. Any information you see
on-screen makes use of the video card as a messenger to the monitor.
The monitor doesn't do any processing itself. The monitor only
displays the information that the video card tells it to.
Monitor Sizes
The two most common
monitor sizes are 15-inch and 17-inch. If you have an older,
hand-me-down PC or a very inexpensive starter PC, you may have a
smaller 14-inch monitor. 21-inch monitors are also available but
mostly used by graphics professionals.
TIP: In the U.S., monitors
are measured diagonally from one corner of the tube to the other,
but part of the tube is hidden by the case so the actual viewing
area is reduced. Lately, most stores have begun to also list the
"viewable" size.
VGA and SVGA
Monitors
The two most common
acronyms you will see on current monitors are VGA or SVGA. Both of
these terms generally refer to how many dots (or pixels) in each
direction the monitor can display. VGA is 640x480 (width by height)
and SVGA is 800x600. This measurement is called the monitor's resolution,
and more is better! Most new monitors are capable of displaying at
least SVGA quality. In fact, 1,024x768 is somewhat of a minimum to
look for.
Almost any VGA or
SGVA monitor made in the last few years is capable of displaying any
of these resolutions. However, it's actually the video card that
determines what resolution your monitor displays at any time. The
monitor is capable of switching from one resolution to another on
command from the video card.
You'll want to
consider the size of your monitor when deciding which resolution to
use. While these monitors can display many possible resolutions,
higher resolutions may be too small to read on small monitors, and
low resolutions will look huge and clunky on large monitors. Below
table recommends some good resolutions for common monitor sizes.
Recommended
Resolutions for Common Monitor Sizes
Monitor Size |
Recommended
Resolutions |
14-inch |
640x480
800x600 |
15-inch |
800x600
1,024x768 |
17-inch |
1,024x768
1,280x1,024 |
NOTE: EGA, CGA, and MDA
are older, greatly outdated monitor types that do not work with
Windows 95.
Interlaced
Monitors
The picture that
you see on the monitor at any time is constantly being refreshed (redisplayed)
on the screen. Most monitors are capable of refreshing every pixel
on the screen about 60 times per second. However, some monitors take
a slight shortcut and refresh only every other line of pixels each
time. So, the monitor still may refresh 60 times a second, but each
line of pixels is refreshed only 30 times a second--a process called
interlacing.
Interlaced monitors
are always less expensive than non-interlaced monitors with similar
features, but interlaced monitors flicker more than non-interlaced
monitors. If you work under fluorescent lights or spend long periods
of time in front of the screen, you should consider going with a
non-interlaced monitor.
VGA and SVGA
Video Cards and Resolutions
Like monitors,
video card capabilities are measured in terms of resolutions. The
two most common sets of resolutions are given special acronyms: VGA
and SVGA. VGA resolution is 640x480. SVGA is 800x600 and is usually
also used to refer to any resolution higher than this. (However, you
may sometimes see XGA used when referring to super-high resolutions
like 1,024x768 and higher.)
Any new PC will
come with an SVGA card. Some older PCs will still have a VGA card.
While it's not the most recent, a VGA card will do just fine as long
as you don't want to play intense video games or have several
windows visible on-screen at the same time.
Your video card and
monitor work together as a pair. The highest resolution you will be
able to use is limited to the highest that either can use. So, a
video card that can display up to 1,600x1,200 resolution with a
monitor that can only display 1,024x768 will be limited to 1,024x768
as a pair.
Video Cards and
Colors
Another measure of
video card performance is how many colors it can display at once.
While you might think that a video card should be able to display
"all" of the colors, it's not quite that simple.
Video displays use
three different basic colors--red, green, and blue (called RGB
color)--to display all of the possible colors. Each pixel
on-screen actually has a red, blue, and green component. By varying
the brightness of each of these colors for each pixel, the video
card mixes the three basic colors to come up with all of the hues it
displays.
But because a video
card is digital, each of these colors has to be broken down into
digital increments. This is where video color gets a little
confusing, so follow a little math.
Color capabilities
are coded with two sets of terms. In some settings, you'll see these
described by the number of colors displayed, in others by the number
of "bits" used to display the colors. Below Table
puts these two measures together.
Terms for Color
Capabilities
Bit Depth |
Math |
Colors
Displayed |
Other Name |
4 |
2^4=16 |
16 color |
|
8 |
2^8=256 |
256 color |
|
16 |
2^16=65,536 |
65K |
Hi-color |
24 |
2^24=16,777,216 |
16 million |
True-color |
So, how does this
relate to the digital increments? 256 colors means that the card can
have 256 sets of increments across the three colors. A video card
can actually display any of the total possible 16 million colors.
What is really limited at any time is the number of colors it can
remember and display at once. The more colors your programs need to
display at once, the more memory your card will need. This is the
topic of the next section.
Video Card RAM
RAM in your
computer stores the information and programs that you are working
with. RAM on the video card stores information about each screen
pixel--what color it is, and how bright it is.
The more pixels you
are displaying on-screen at once (higher resolution), the more RAM
it takes on the video card to track the colors for all of the
pixels. And the more colors you are displaying, the more RAM it
takes to track the color for each pixel.
An 800x600 display
has about 50 percent more pixels than a 640x480, and a 1,024x768 has
about 160 percent more. So, to display the same number of colors in
these higher resolutions will take about 50 percent and 160 percent
more video RAM, respectively.
Below table shows
maximum numbers of colors that can display at various resolutions
with different amounts of RAM. The numbers shown are
"general-rule-of-thumb" numbers, and will vary from card
to card.
Maximum Number of
Colors Displayed at Different Resolutions
RAM |
Resolution |
Maximum
Colors |
1M |
640x480 |
16 million |
|
800x600 |
65,000 |
|
1,024x768 |
256 |
2M |
640x480 |
16 million |
|
800x600 |
16 million |
|
1,024x768 |
65,000 |
4M |
640x480 |
16 million |
|
800x600 |
16 million |
|
1,024x768 |
16 million |
Video Cards,
Video Games, and Full-Motion Video
For general
everyday computing needs like using a word processor, spreadsheet,
or presentation program, video card speed is not a big issue. But
for playing action-oriented video games or full-motion videos, the
speed of the video card is important. The faster the video card, the
less "jerky" the action will seem as you fly through space
in your favorite flight simulator game, or the fewer frames of a
movie the card will miss.
For video cards,
there are a couple of key benchmarks. ZiffDavis Benchmarks has a
bench-marking group that measures video cards in terms of graphics
winmarks. This is essentially a measure of how fast the card is
in Windows and is important for Windows games. Similarly, they have
a DOS graphics rating for DOS games.
Another measure of
graphics speed is polygons per second. This measures how many
shapes per second the card can draw.
With any video
benchmark, faster is better and higher scores are always faster.
Special
Considerations for Notebook Displays
Notebook displays
have a few unique factors and features that don't apply to desktop
moni- tors. In general, these features relate to the type of display
technology used in notebook construction.
Passive Matrix,
Dual-Scan, and Active Matrix Displays
The first term you
may encounter in regard to notebook displays is passive matrix.
Most bargain-priced notebooks use this type of display technology.
The display can be dim and hard to see if you aren't looking at it
in the right light from the right angle. An improved version of this
is called dual-scan; dual-scan screen notebooks are sometimes sold
under the descriptions DSTN or CSTN.
Another type of
notebook computer screen technology is active matrix. Active
matrix screens--sometimes listed as TFT in system descriptions--are
used in top-of-the-line notebooks. Though more expensive, active
matrix displays are brighter and crisper.
Notebook
Display Size
The other key
difference in notebook displays is size. As explained earlier,
viewable area on a desktop monitor is usually smaller than the
monitor's stated size. But, a 12.1-inch notebook monitor measures
12.1 real inches diagonally. So, you can get away with a smaller
display on a notebook because you don't lose any unviewable area.
12.1 inches is becoming a good entry point. 13-inch displays are
starting to come on a lot of laptops, but right now they are
probably not worth the big price premium.
Notebook
Display Resolution
In general,
notebook displays are limited to 640x480 resolution for a 10-11-inch
display. Most 12-inch displays can run at 800x600, and some of the
new 13-inch displays run at up to 1,024x768.
Hooking Up Your
New Monitor
When you are ready
to hook up your monitor, carefully unpack it and save all of the
packing and boxes. If you ever need to move or have it serviced,
you'll want the box and packing to transport it. Look in the box to
see if there are any disks or CDs. If there are, read the labels;
they may be software that you need to use the monitor. Or, they may
just be freebies like games or giveaway bonus software.
The monitor should
have two cables. One should be a familiar power cord with a standard
three-prong plug. The other is the cable you will use to connect the
monitor to the video card.
- 1. Shut
down the PC and turn off the power to the PC and monitor, then
disconnect the monitor and PC from the electrical outlet.
2. Look at the back of the PC and find where the monitor
cable is attached. Carefully loosen the thumbscrews of the old
monitor cable and detach it from the card. Be sure not to
disturb other wires and make sure you see where you disconnected
it from.
3. Move the old monitor out of the way and move the new
monitor into its place.
4. Connect the new monitor cable to the video card
connector that you detached the old monitor from. Don't force
the connection. The connector is longer on one side than the
other so you may need to turn it over to line it up.
5. Once you feel the connector slide into place, tighten
the thumbscrews. Some people like to leave these loose. I prefer
not to have my monitor cable fall off while I'm working.
6. Plug the monitor into the power outlet and then turn
on the PC and monitor.
If the picture
looks odd, you may need to adjust it. We'll look at adjusting the
monitor settings in the next couple of sections.
Setting Up a
New Monitor in Windows 95
To get the most out
of your monitor in Windows 95, you'll want to tell Windows what type
of monitor you have. To do this:
- 1. Click
the right mouse button on any blank area of the desktop and
choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
Or, click the Start menu, choose Settings, then choose Control
Panel and double-click the Display icon in the Control Panel
folder.
2. In the Display Properties dialog box, click the
Settings tab, then click the Change Display Type button
to open that dialog box
- 3. Click
the Change button to open the Select Device dialog box, In
the middle of the dialog box is the area where we choose the
monitor type.
4. Scroll through the Manufacturer list in the
dialog box and select the brand of monitor you have. Then, in
the Models list (to the right) select the model. Click
OK.
NOTE: If your monitor came with a
disk with driver software for Windows 95, insert the disk and
click the Have Disk button. Click the Browse button in the
Install from Disk dialog box to select the drive with the
installation disk, then click OK. This will then give you a list
of possible monitors to choose from in the Select Device dialog
box in step 4.
- 5. Windows
now enters your selection in the Change Display Type dialog box.
Click Close in that dialog box, then click OK in the Display
Properties dialog box and you are ready to go.
CAUTION: Choosing the wrong
monitor display type during the preceding procedure can damage
your monitor. If your brand and model aren't listed, call the
maker's technical support number to find out what setting you
should use.
NOTE: Some cool graphics cards
come with their own utilities for changing the monitor settings.
In fact, they may even add extra features in Windows 95's own
Display Properties dialog box
Each of these
cards is different, and if you want to make the most of the extras
they provide, read the manual or help that came with it. If your
display properties dialog box has some extras in it like this,
some of the tasks in this chapter may work a little differently
with your computer.
Adjusting Your
Monitor Settings
On the front of
your monitor, there are usually several controls that affect the
appearance of your monitor display. These controls may be small
dials or buttons. Here are some typical controls that you will find
and what they do:
Brightness.
This controls the overall brightness of the picture
on-screen. Use this when the picture is either too bright or
too dark.
|
Contrast.
This changes the contrast between the light and dark areas
displayed on-screen. Adjust this if your picture looks
washed out, gray all over, or if the whites hurt your eyes.
|
Horizontal
and vertical sizing.
If the picture on-screen doesn't reach close enough to the
top and bottom or the sides, use these controls to resize
it. |
NOTE: On most monitors,
there will be a small black border area around the picture when it
is correctly sized. Adjusting the picture too large to try to get
rid of this border will distort and curve the edges of what's
on-screen.
Centering.
If your picture isn't centered on-screen, use the centering
controls to adjust it. You may need to work with the
centering and sizing alternately to get it centered and
sized.
|
Deguass.
This is almost always a button. Monitors generate large
magnetic fields; over time these fields can build up and
distort the picture. Other magnetic items (like un-shielded
speakers) can also generate fields that distort the picture.
If this happens, press the Deguass button. You will usually
hear a pop, and the picture will disappear and resize. When
it comes back, it should look better. If not, you may want
to see the troubleshooting section at the end of the
chapter. |
Most monitors'
controls have "centers" that put these settings at their
middle grounds or factory presets. On dial controls, you may feel a
small click as you turn the control to the center point. On button
controls, there will usually be an indicator on-screen that shows
the center.
TIP: Notebook computer users will
usually find the monitor brightness and contrast controls as
function keys on the keyboard. Notebooks don't have the ability to
adjust the display size or recenter it, and there is no need to
degauss them. See your notebook manual if you need details on
using those.
Changing the
Numbers of Colors Windows Can Display
How many colors do
you want to be able to see on-screen? That answer depends a lot on
what you use your PC for and what kind of video card you have. If
all you use your PC for is word processing or spreadsheets, the
standard display options of showing 16 or 256 colors at once should
work for you.
But, if you like to
look at pictures or video or play photo-realistic games, you may
find that the colors look all wrong on-screen with the default
settings. To change the number of colors Windows 95 can display at
once, follow these steps:
- 1.
Click the right mouse button on any empty space on the desktop
and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
2. Click the Settings tab in the Display Properties
dialog box.
3. Click the Color Palette drop-down list and
choose from one of the options. The options available here will
depend on your video card and desktop display size. Windows
won't display options that are over the limit for your card.
- 4. Click
OK once you have made your selection.
5. In order for this change to take effect, Windows must
restart. Click Yes to allow Windows to restart.
Changing the
Size (Resolution) of the Display
You can increase
the size of the desktop display area to be able to fit more visible
open windows on-screen at once, or see a bigger area of the windows
you have open. However, because you monitor doesn't actually change
size when you change the resolution of the display area (that would
take a small miracle), making the display area "bigger"
makes each item on-screen look smaller.
To change the
display area size, follow these steps:
- 1. Click
the right mouse button on any empty space on the desktop and
choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
2. Drag the slider for the Desktop Area to a higher or
lower setting. If the slider is all the way to the right edge of
the control area, then you can't make the display area larger.
Likewise, when it is all the way to the left, it is as small as
it will get.
3. Click OK to resize. Windows will inform you that this
setting may cause problems. Click OK to continue.
4. If all goes well, the picture will "hiccup"
a little and return to normal. If it looks normal, click OK to
keep the new setting.
If things didn't go well and the display doesn't look right,
click Cancel and Windows will return you to the previous
settings. If the display is so messed up that you can't see it
to cancel it, Windows will return to the old settings after 15
seconds if you do nothing.
Changing
Wallpaper and Patterns in Windows
Wallpaper and
patterns are just decoration on top of Windows. While they don't
really relate to the monitor, you do see them on the monitor. So if
you want to change them, follow these steps:
- 1. Click
the right mouse button on any empty space on the desktop and
choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
2. Click the Background tab of the Display Properties
dialog box.
- 3. In
the Pattern list, select a pattern. This pattern will be
applied to your desktop. A preview of any changes you make here
is shown in the drawing of the monitor in the top of this dialog
box.
- 4. To
apply one of the existing wallpapers, select it in the Wallpaper
list. You will probably want to select the Tile option to
fill the desktop with the wallpaper as most of these are very
small.
5. If you have a picture that you would like to use as
wallpaper, click the Browse button to find the right file
and click OK after you have selected it. Usually, pictures are
larger and look best with the Center option selected.
TIP: Windows can only use
pictures in the Windows Bitmap format for wallpaper. If you are
downloading picture files from the Internet, most of these are in
GIF or JPEG format. You'll need to use a graphics program like
Microsoft Photo Editor (that comes with Office 97) or a shareware
program like PaintShop Pro to save these as bitmaps that can be
used as wallpaper.
- 6.
Click OK when you have made your changes to close the dialog
box.
Cleaning and
Protecting Your Monitor
Monitors, like most
computer parts, are susceptible to damage and decay from dirt, dust,
and misuse. A few simple guidelines will help extend the life of
your monitor.
First, try to keep
the exterior clean and free of dust. You can use any lint-free rag
to dust the case and screen. For a small investment of a couple
dollars, you can get monitor cleaning "wipes" that will do
a better job keeping dust off of the screen. You can use a common,
non-abrasive household cleaner if you want but it's not necessary.
If you do, use it sparingly, be sure the monitor is off, and spray
it on the rag, not the monitor. If you use the monitor in a really
dusty area, you will want to get a cover for it and keep it covered
when not in use.
Second, if you have
speakers attached to your PC, be sure they are shielded to prevent
electrical static from passing between your PC and speakers. If they
aren't, move them away from the monitor. If you are shopping for
computer speakers, be sure to buy shielded ones. Almost all speakers
designed for PCs are shielded, but you will find some cheaper models
that aren't. Likewise, speakers that you bought outside the computer
department at the local electronics store to use with your Walkman
may not be shielded.
Finally, your
monitor throws off a lot of heat. It has a lot of openings on the
top and maybe the sides and back to let it cool. Don't stack papers,
books, or other junk on top of the monitor or around the sides. In
addition to causing the monitor to overheat, these could be a fire
hazard, or your cheap, plastic toy you used as a monitor hood
ornament could melt and ruin the guts of the monitor.
Troubleshooting
Display Problems
The following
sections present some common monitor and display problems and offer
some potential solutions.
The Picture Is
All Wavy, Fuzzy, and Won't Work in Windows
This usually means
that the video card or monitor settings are wrong. Shut down the
computer and restart it in Safe mode; then check to be sure your
display settings match the brand and model of monitor and card that
you have. If this doesn't work, try setting the display settings to
the generic VGA or SVGA display card and monitor types. Contact the
video card vendor's technical support to see if they have a more
recent set of drivers.
The Picture
Changes Size Going from DOS to Windows
This is fairly
normal and is only a problem if the change is so dramatic that
either DOS or Windows screens are too small or large to use. If this
is the case, check your display settings to be sure the correct
monitor is selected.
The Picture
Keeps Getting Smaller
Bad news: The
picture tube in the monitor is going bad. If it's under warranty,
send it back for repair. Otherwise, it's probably a better
investment (and no more expensive) to shop for a new monitor.
I Can't Resize
the Screen on My Notebook
Notebook screens
are a fixed size. They can't be resized like a monitor. Some will
allow you to resize the desktop resolution, and if you do, you may
have to pan to see the whole desktop on-screen at once.
Windows or a
Program Tells Me I Can't Display the Right Number of Colors
Your screen
resolution may be too high to display more colors with your video
card. Try selecting a lower screen resolution in the Display
Properties dialog box.
The Monitor
Doesn't Come on When I Turn on the PC
Look for a separate
on/off switch on the monitor itself and turn it on there.
The Monitor
Doesn't Turn off When Windows 95 Shuts Down the Computer
Look for a separate
on/off switch on the monitor itself and turn it off there.
Can I Fix or
Upgrade the Inside of My Monitor Like My PC?
No! The inside of
your monitor is a dangerous electrical place even when unplugged.
Leave servicing the monitor to a professional.
|