strange video problems

Over the last couple of days I noticed an irritating condition coming from my monitor. It seems that it will only display 60hz regarding of what resolution/refresh rate I have selected. It really hurts my eyes. I thought it might be an issue with the video card driver for my 9500n/p since I was using the Omega drivers with the softmod. Since it was about time for me to have to do it anyway, I just reinstalled windows. Problem is still there.

I installed the newest ATI drivers from their site which I d/led yesterday and the problem is still there. I installed the newest Omega drivers hoping that might fix it, but it didn't.

So logically, I started thinking it might be hardware related and since it was still able to display all of my original resolutions, I went to bestbuy and picked up a cheap 19" (which I am using right now) to test it out. But the problem is still there.

Is it possible I broke the 2d ramdac on my card or something? It is VERY annoying and I am trying to help diagnose the problem.

I have a GF3Ti500 agp card I am going to try out tomorrow to see if it is the card, but I have a strong feeling it is something windows/driver related.

If you are just adjusting the refresh rate in control panel under the "monitor" setting...Try this.

Look at the "Display" on the ATI tabs and you can adjust the refresh rate there.

Sometimes you have to adjust the refresh rate under the "Displays" tab first...Sounds like the problem to me...Seems default is 60mhz and you have to change it there before it will allow you to actually change the refresh rate above 60mhz.

I checked both places and they are both set to the same thing. The problem is the screen looks the same independent of which refresh rate I set it to. It usually changes and I can see the difference between 60hz and anything higher on my monitor. Even the new monitor seems to be doing the same thing. This is why I suspected it was a windows/driver issue. Today I am going to swap out the video card anyway, so hopefully that ISN'T the problem because my 9500 has served me well for quite some time and I really can't afford a new card right now

well changing the video card didn't fix the problem. Also, I booted into knoppix and didn't seem to have the video flicker problem I have now. Is something like using smoothed text or some of those other visual enhancements that could be causing this? Come to think about it, I don't remember having this problem before installing SP2...