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There are one, two or three faint stationary horizontal lines on the screen, most visible when displaying a white background

Explanation: There are one or more faint horizontal lines across the middle of the screen. These are most noticeable when viewing a solid white image. The number of lines depends on the size of the screen, with larger screens having more lines.

Diagnosis: These lines are normal for any of the monitors that use Sony's Trinitron CRT, or a similar design. They are caused by stabilizing wires that hold in place the aperture grill that is used in the CRT to define the pixels that make up the image. CRTs that use a shadow mask should not have these lines. See here for more details.

Recommendation: Ignore the lines. Most people do not notice them, and in time, most of those that do initially notice them find that they get used to them. The only other option is to replace the monitor with one that uses a different design. Turning the brightness down may help also (but at the cost of a dimmer picture, obviously).


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