Hello,

Recently, a single thin horizontal line is permanently appearing a little more than halfway up my monitor. What I've noticed about the line itself is that it "tries" to blend in with solid colors, but ends up being darker than the color it is trying to blend in with. For example, if I display an all-white screen, the line turns gray. If I display an all-light blue screen, the line becomes dark blue, etc. The only exceptions that I've noticed so far is that with medium-red, it turns into more of a grayish red instead of a dark red, and with photos, it pretty much turns black.

Another thing I noticed is that the line will "maintain" its color for about a quarter or half of a second after switching to another image before it tries to blend in with the new image - so you can see there is a slight lag going on.

Also, only a few days before this problem happened, I got a message at boot-up saying that my system battery voltage is low. I have not seen this message come up since, but I get the feeling that it's just something coincidental. I have not replaced the system battery yet since I've read about some problems that others have run into while doing this (DVD/CD drives stop working after battery switch, etc.) My PC is about 5 years old and, If need be, I'll switch the battery. But first I'd like to see if the horizontal line is being caused by something else. Could my monitor or video card be on its way out?

My specs:
Dell Dimension 8400, Windows XP, Service Pack 3
Monitor - Dell UtraSharp 1905 FP (an LCD screen)
Video Card - ATI Radeon X300SE

Things I've tried so far:
-The Dell monitor has a Self-Test Feature Check, where you unhook the digital and/or analog connectors to the montor, and turn on the monitor. It reports no problems during the test, however the horizontal line still appears.

-I've booted to safe mode, and the horizonal line still appears.

-I've tried the different screen refresh rates available, but that doesn't solve anything.

Thanks!