LCD monitor is dark and loses contrast

I am running win/98 on a 5 year old Sony 150 rated at 233MMX using a Viewsonic LCD monitor(actually have 2 of them(a VPA150 and a VA520). When I boot the machine it will begin to come up normally with the screen colors normal, but when it reaches the point to enter the windows network password, it will go very dark and lose contrast is almost impossible to read it. I will switch the vga cable from the vpa150 to the va520 and it is at least bright enough to barely read. I will go into the control panel and check setting and see that somehow they have reverted to 16 bit color. I will change the color setting to 256 bit color or higher and reboot and the machine and display will come up normally and be just fine until I reboot the next time. I have changed cables( to no avail), used both monitors on my other machine(a 1.8 gig Sony)and it always comes up fine. I have gone to the viewsonic website and downloaded current drivers to no avail. I have booted off a backup disk drive for this machine and the problems are exactly the same. The backup was created several days before the problem began. The problem just began several days ago.
When I shut the machine down when the monitor is in darkened mode, just before it shuts down I will get the message that "Windows is shutting down" and at that point the monitor will revert to normal contrast and brightness just before shutting down. So it is ok upon initial startup, fails when windows is up, goes normal on shutdown, and will be ok on the first reboot after changing ctl panel, display panel characteristics. I am guess a bad video board somehow. Any ideas out there??

1. RE: LCD monitor is dark and loses contrast
Twinhead Jun-14-02 03:40 AM
In response to message 0

Could it be the RefreshRate?
try to set that on 75Hz or less.
Is there a dim function accedentely activated in your monitor software?
If not, boot into safe mode.
Go to the Device manager and delete the videocard AND the monitor in the listings.
Also, delete ALL double or Multiple items AND items that are shurely no longer present in your system.
Restart and windows wil redetect your devices.
Victor.

2. RE: LCD monitor is dark and loses contrast
obi Jun-14-02 01:39 PM
In response to message 1

Thank you Victor for your response. I have tried these ideas to no success. However I did find another clue. If I attempt to bring up my win/98 Sony on the VPA 150 LCD monitor, it will come up dark unless I had made a change to the colors in the display properties from let us say from 16 colors to let us say true color(32 bit)before the next power down/up sequence. If I have made a change it will only come up correctly one time and all succeeding attempts upon reboot will come up so dark that I cannot make out anything. However if I just remove the cable from the vpa 150 and plug it into the VA 520 the win/98 machine will always come up clean with no problem. If I plug the VPA 150(the problem monitor) into my Sony 1.8 gig win/xp machine, it too will always come up clean.
So there is something going on between the vpa 150 and the older 233mmx win/98 machine that is imcompatable, but yet again if I do a change to the colors of the display panel(by going settings, ctl panel, displays, settings before a reboot of this machine, the next time I come up on this monitor, all will be well. Incidently again the only way I can make this change is by cabling the win/98 machine to the va520(the monitor with no problem) as I cannot even see the control panel well enough to make the change using the vpa 150 as all will be too dark.
I know this explanation is complex, but this is the way it is. Again I have changed all drivers, and also booted from an older harddrive(that was created when all was still well) and switched vga cables. I suspect some voltage situation on the video/display card of the older machine to which the vpa150 is sensitive but the va520 is not.
Does anyone know how I can move this post to other conferences so others who may have any ideas will see it and perhaps have an idea?
Thank you

3. RE: LCD monitor is dark and loses contrast
Twinhead Jun-15-02 10:19 AM
In response to message 2

You cannot move a post.
Simply select your post, highlight all the text and press CTRL-C
Then open a new post in your desired topic, and press CTRL-V
Victor.

4. RE: LCD monitor is dark and loses contrast
lbyard Jun-15-02 01:48 PM
In response to message 3

I would very much appreciate it if members do not make multiple posts on the same problem in these forums. I would will usually delete duplicates. Larry

5. RE: LCD monitor is dark and loses contrast
Twinhead Jun-15-02 05:17 PM
In response to message 4

OOOPS...
I am sorry!
I will never tell again how to copy a post.
Vitor.

6. RE: LCD monitor is dark and loses contrast
lbyard Jun-16-02 03:07 PM
In response to message 5

No big deal. Multiple post just make more work when going through the forums each day. Larry