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.

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.

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.

NOTE: EGA, CGA, and MDA are older, greatly outdated monitor types that do not work with Windows 95.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The following sections present some common monitor and display problems and offer some potential solutions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Look for a separate on/off switch on the monitor itself and turn it on there.

Look for a separate on/off switch on the monitor itself and turn it off there.

No! The inside of your monitor is a dangerous electrical place even when unplugged. Leave servicing the monitor to a professional.