CompTIA A+® Certification All-In-One For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

3.2. Using Your Monitor

After you install the video adapter (see the previous section), you then need to connect the monitor to the video adapter. The following sections identify the different types of displays used with computers today and then discuss how to configure your display through Windows.

3.2.1. Types of displays

You might find a few different types of displays connected to a system: a CRT monitor, an LCD monitor, or even a projector. In this chapter, I focus on CRTs because LCDs are discussed in Book III, Chapter 7, and you are not likely to get any questions on the A+ exam about projectors. I do define each type of display, though.

3.2.1.1. Cathode ray tube (CRT)

CRT monitors were popular for computing for many years (and were also popular as television screens) and are typically curved screens but there are flat screen versions. After receiving a signal from the video card, a CRT monitor displays the image by using an electron gun that shoots electrons at the phosphors covering the back of the screen, causing those areas of the screen to glow.

The electron gun located in the CRT continues to fire at the back of the screen from left to right and from top to bottom. This causes a glow of three phosphors colored red, green, and blue to create a single pixel on the screen. The combination of all the lit pixels creates the image that you see, and the speed at which the pixels change gives the illusion of moving objects onscreen.

Refresh rate and dot pitch are two very ...