Coloured lines on screen?

[DorsetDude]

Hi all

recently my display for my desktop pc has started glitching, I either get flashing pinks "smears" in certain areas of the desktop or I get thin flickering horizontal lines across the whole screen, pink if the background is dark, pale blue if white background. I guess its either my graphics card or monitor gone wrong? This usually happens after Ive left the PC on for a while and come back to it later although today I got the flickering lines straight away for a while then they suddenly cleared.
Is there any way to determine whats at fault? The monitor isnt that old so I dont think it'll be that but you never know I guess.
Unlikely to be a virus?

Thanks

 

[neil_g]

id say hardware fault..

check the cable between screen and pc first off and replace with a spare. otherwise could be graphics card or screen failing.

 

[DorsetDude]

Cheers Neil

Since posting, Ive just come back and another problem I have is that apps I leave open are closed when I get back. Ive just had to relaunch firefox and outlook. Why the heck would it close them "itself"?

 

[neil_g]

maybe crashed? check the event logs for any issues for those programs

 

[LongLensPhotography]

last time I had lines like that (7+ years ago) the monitor gave up very shortly after. Try another machine if you can to rule out video card issues. Does the line stay in the very same place, or positioned randomly?

 

[Steep]

CPU on the way out maybe? errors with applications and weird display corruption sounds just like a problem I had a few years ago that in the end turned out to be the processor dying.

 

[LongLensPhotography]

Try linux from live CD. That will tell if your CPU / GPU are misbehaving rather clearly if things keep crashing

 

[DorsetDude]

Event logs seem ok.

Most odd.