Monitor gone crazy

[Huckleberry]

I just built a used system for a buddy to use for email. It worked fine for me, but when he hooked it up to an old compaq monitor it showed a scrambled picture of the desktop. The post was fine and readable and then the windows insignia was fine on bootup, but when it got to the desktop it was like the horizontal and vertical were all screwed up. I could see like six of every icon and the screen was really wavy and had lines all over. Is this monitor incompatible or is it something in the bios? Or is the monitor just shot?

system specs:
pentium 233
64 megs ram
ecs mobo
win 98fe

Thanks

[ahsia]

Probably because the video card screen area is set at something the monitor can't handle. Boot into safe mode, and change the screen size to 640x480, and then restart the computer. Then when it boots normally, the picture should be okay, and you should be able to change the screen size something else. That should fix the problem.

[Bink]

Along the lines of what ahsia said, it's likely to be either a resolution, refresh rate or colour depth problem. If the monitor can't support a setting you've set any of these to, it will have the problem you described.

ahsia's suggestion of booting into Safe mode and adjusting the settings, is the easiest way to overcome it.

[Shinma]

Originally posted by Huckleberry:
...an old compaq monitor it showed a scrambled picture of the desktop...post was fine...the windows insignia was fine on bootup, but when it got to the desktop it was like the horizontal and vertical were all screwed up...

Likely exceeding the capabilities/specifications of the monitor and/or video card/chip as ahsia already stated.
Press F5 key to enter Safe Mode.
Make sure that the new Display settings does not exceed the specification of the monitor and the video card/chip.

[Huckleberry]

That did it. Thanks for the help. You guys were right on