Good news Molly. Looks like trash was turned to treasure then. Good riddance to the VGA (DVI is the way to go).

That's great!
Keep a close eye on things and let us know how it's going.

Will do, thanks

This is positive news.

So to summarize, after the factory reset and manually specifying the connector type, the monitor came back on with the VGA cable yesterday and it came back on with the DVI cable today. It actually worked normally with either cable. Perhaps the factory reset and manual selection of the connector type did the trick.

Hopefully, that is the case and your problem is not intermittent. I guess we will know for sure after a few more days.

Yes, I am still holding me breath. Working great right now, thanks to all.

I see. Some HDMI video cards have an onboard sound chip and you can end up with two sound chips, one on the video card and one being the motherboard's (or sound card's) onboard sound chip. You might be able to configure your HDMI port as a pass through device and use the motherboard's sound chip which might allow you to connect your mic but I don't see how you gain much in the way of sound quality by doing this.

You're probably better off just disabling the HDMI sound and connecting your speakers to the motherboard's (or sound card's) audio jack. That way, you can use your mic too. The way you have it connected now, there is a digital to analog conversion occurring when you connect the speakers to the headphone jack on your monitor. You'd have more control and probably get better sound by using the motherboard's (or sound card's) audio out connected directly to your speakers. Just use the HDMI for video.

Yeah I get it.
I'm really more concerned about functionality than sound quality. That's a good option for me to consider and when I think about it that's what I'll do.
Thanks for your technical insight Tux.

I thought this problem was solved but as Tux mentioned, this may only be temporary. I have to unplug my monitor 2 or 3 times a day now. When I shut down my pc, half the time it won't shut down because the monitor stalls or whatever it does. Now when it is idle for 20 mins or so I get this screen. The sad thing is that it is working perfectly in between these interuptions
Looks like it would make a nice gradient...

Did you connect the monitor to another PC to confirm it's the monitor and not the PC's video adapter?

If you see the identical behavior when using the monitor on another PC, you know the monitor itself is going bad and needs replacing.

I will put it on Neil's pc for a few days and see what happens, thanks. I did that before but I didn't leave it long enough.

I think Tux is right.
You want to have confirmation that it's your monitor that on the fritz and not something else.
It could also be your GPU (graphics processing unit). If you're using a built-in/on-board GPU, this could be even more difficult to replace/repair.
Good luck Molly, I've got my fingers crossed.

BTW... I have a 17' Acer monitor (in it's box) sitting around. "Hint Hint"

Not big enough Wallace. I just now traded my 22" in for a 19 and it looks so small in comparison. I will let it test for two days and if it acts up on the other pc, it is toast. down to Bestbuy I go.
Thanks for the offer, anyway the shipping cost almost as much as the item anymore.
Of coarse, if you are planning to drive up to Canada with it, thats fine too.

That would be quite a drive.

Maybe you can get one of these to place in front of your monitor...

you are funny