New monitor

[spritzer]

Hi,
I have recently plugged in a different monitor on my computer and since then am finding that connecting to sites is incredibly slow. Even trying to open up my documents seems to take a very long time.
Does anyone know if it's likely its due to the new monitor?. I bought it from ebay. Do I need to install it in some way?
Any advice greatly appreciated. Thank you

[ACtheTROLL]

I'm not convinced ....

if you had installed something - now that would be suspicious - but I've never heard of a monitor needing anything doing other than plugging in.

some do come with colour profiles and fancy "helpers" - which might be handy - but they aren't NEEDED.

does the monitor have a built in USB hub - or anything?
is the monitor HUGE?

if the resolution and/or refresh is set very high i will tax your video card.

what size is it - what did it replace?

[Panic Button]

Can you try it with the old monitor?

[spritzer]

Thank you ACthe TROLL & Panic Button,
The new monitor is a flat screen one to replace the original big one we had. It's not huge 15". Can you please explain what you mean by the resolution and refresh being set too high? and what is my video card?
I was going to try panic button's idea of plugging my old monitor in and seeing if it makes any difference but themI thought about all the clever people on AB and tried here first.

[spritzer]

Have just been fiddling around with a few icons and have found that the resolution is 800x600 pixels and the screen refresh rate is 60hertz. Does that sound about right?

[Panic Button]

No idea on that, but thinking about it, when we replaced our monitor with a flat screen we had to put a software disc in.

On the programmes menu we now have a link called 'flat panel adjust'

[ACtheTROLL]

see - you can cope ;)

800x600 at 60Hz is absolutely fine

resolution is the number of dots used to make the picture
because the screen is a fixed size - the more you cram in the clearer the pic tends to be (within reason)
it all depends on your eyes - on a 15" screen 800x600 is fine - personally I like the next one up at 1024x768 - you get more content on screen - but words can be harder to read - best way is try

the refresh rate is the number of times the screen is "rebuilt" every second to show movement
the newer old style "propper" CRT monitors were so fast that you could sometimes see the screen flicker
so you could increase the refresh until it was too fast to see.

the trouble is that your graphics card (the thing the screen plugs into which takes info from the PC and shows it on screen)
has to calculate more dots more times a second - so there is generally a compromise to get the best picture without exhausting the card - which will slow the PC

http://www.helpwithpcs.com/tipsandtricks/chang ing-screen-resolution-win-xp.htm

But If your old monitor is dead - I'm guessing tour PC is no chicken either?
so I'm thinking it's coincidence - try this
look at your drive(s?) in my computer - how much free space?
you should have about 20% free on C:\ for windows to work well.

uninstall any progs you don't use any more
if you have 1000s of photos or music files - you should think about archiving them to CD or an external HDD

it's also worth downloading and running
http://www.ccleaner.com/downloadbr />
it will clean out any rubbish that's accumulated.

then
check

[ACtheTROLL]

defrag the disk
1. Open My Computer.
2. Right-click the local disk volume that you want to defragment, and then click Properties.
3. On the Tools tab, click Defragment Now.
4. Click Defragment

you should do this every couple of months or so

it won't make a huge difference - but it's good practice - and just keeps things "oiled"

[spritzer]

Thank you so much ACtheTROLL and Panic Button for taking the time to explain things so clearly to me. I appreciate that. I will certainly try all the things you have suggested.
Best wishes