"stripes" on my monitor

[Mom]

I thought this was my monitor failing and purchased a new flatscreen monitor today, to discover the "stripes" continuing with my new monitor. Computor is several years old Dell, but does everything I want it to do. Was trying to hold off buying a new system, so just purchased cheap monitor. Could it be my video card?

[patio]

Most likely...not necessary to replace the machine if it suits your purposes.

Do you know anyone you could borrow  a vid card from to test if it for sure is the culprit ? ?

Afterwards post back with your budget requirements and our Resident Video experts will be along to offer recommendations...

[Mom]

Thanks. I'll try removing, cleaning and reseating my video card to see if that's the problem. Kinda wish I'd thought of that befor buying the monitor.

[soybean]

Well, since you have the second monitor now, you might want to try running dual monitors.  Of course, you need to monitor connectors on your computer in order to do that.  If that's not the case now and you find you need to replace your video card, you could get one that supports two monitors.