How To Fix A Sagging Monitor Mount

A sagging monitor mount can really be a pain. It doesn’t stay where you want it which makes for a frustrating experience. It’s hard to focus on your work, shows, or anything else you do on your computer. 

In this article, we’re going to go over all the common causes of a sagging monitor mount and how you can fix it once and for all.  

Here’s a before and after of my fixing my monitor tilt sag. (We cover other types of monitor sag too!)

Key Takeaways

Leading causes & solutions to monitor arm sag include the following:

• Pivoting bolts are not tightened enough. You must tighten the pivot right behind the monitor to control the tilt. It may need to be uncomfortably tight. 
• The monitor mount has an incompatible weight capacity. Always purchase a mount that can carry significantly more than your monitor’s weight for the best experience. 
• For gas spring mounts, the gas spring is not adjusted to match the weight of your monitor. You can adjust the tension of the gas spring inside of your monitor mount so it holds your monitor up freely. 

Common Causes of Monitor Mount Sag

First, we have to identify the problem before we go trying to fix different potential issues. Typically monitor sag comes in two different forms. 

1. Your monitor keeps tilting downwards on the mount. 
2. Your monitor falls lower and lower until it reaches the table. 

Both of these are fairly common. My current monitor mount is guilty of the first category of constantly tilting downwards. 

Here are the common causes of these two sag issues. After this section, we’ll tell you how to fix these issues. 

Monitor Mount Not Rated For Monitor Weight

The first thing everyone should check is that their monitor mount is actually rated for their monitor weight. If you are close to or above this weight, you may experience some sag. 

I always try to get a monitor mount that can hold a monitor significantly heavier than my own. This way you are more likely to have a stable experience and the sag is much less likely. 

Tilt Pivot Point Is Not Tight Enough

If your monitor is constantly tilting downwards, this likely means that the tilt pivot bolt is not tightened completely. This is the problem I kept having with mounting my 34-inch ultrawide monitor on my monitor mount. 

It is the small pivot point located right behind your monitor. It allows your monitor to tilt upwards and downwards. Sometimes, you have to tighten this uncomfortably tight. 

Gas Spring Mount Not Tensioned Appropriately

Gas spring mounts are the ones with arms that can be moved at any time. Many people that have these mounts are not aware that you can tune the spring, there is a little adjustment screw for this. 

This controls how much weight the spring can lift. If your monitor keeps rising, you have to adjust the spring. If it keeps sagging, you have to adjust the spring in the opposite direction. 

Using a Curved Ultrawide Monitor On A Normal Mount

Not many people are aware of this, but curved ultrawide monitors don’t work great on mounts, even if they meet the weight requirement. 

This is because these curved monitors curve away from the mount location, they add significantly more torque to the tilting joint. Only purchase monitor mounts that specify curved monitor compatibility. 

Learn more about this issue here from ErgoDirect.

Sometimes you still don’t win. I purchased a monitor mount that specified ultrawide compatibility in my size and weight, and I still have the tilt issue. I ended up tightening the tilt screw super hard. 

How To Fix A Sagging Monitor Mount

Now that we touched on the causes of why your monitor mount might be sagging, let’s talk about how you can actually fix it. 

Tighten Screws & Bolts

Here is what a typical monitor tilting pivot bolt looks like. Some manufacturers want this to have some play so it can be adjusted on the fly. Other manufacturers want you to tighten this bolt to fix the monitor in place. 

Either way, if your monitor is sagging at this tilting joint, you will need to tighten this bolt considerably. 

Here’s a screenshot of the VIVO monitor mount manual showing how to tighten this bolt. It will be similar for most mounts but might be a nut instead of a screw.

A few quick notes on this joint.

• Some mounts have a plastic cover like this that obscures a large nut that needs to be tightened.
• If you have a screw, you can loosen this to expose the threads on the mount and add some grease. This makes it easier to tighten the tilt bolt very tight with less resistance. 

I found myself tightening this bolt uncomfortably tight. It was a bit ridiculous honestly because you shouldn’t have to put in this type of effort for a mount used within the weight spec. 

Adjust The Gas Spring Tension If Applicable

If you have a gas spring monitor mount and your mount is slowly going lower and lower under your monitor’s weight, you have to adjust the gas spring tension.

Here is an example from a VIVO gas spring monitor mount manual:

This is what a gas spring mount looks like:

This is what a fixed-height mount looks like:

The gas spring tension adjustment is there so a large range of different monitors can be used. If your monitor sags, you rotate the gas spring tuning screw one way. If it lifts your monitor too far up, you rotate the tuning screw in the opposite direction. 

Here’s the tension adjustment on my monitor mount. (Excuse the dust!)

When your monitor is not sagging in the tilt axis, but the entire monitor goes down with the arm, it’s likely a gas spring issue. Of course, ensure your monitor weight falls within the weight capacity of the gas spring mount.

Use Higher Capacity Monitor Mount

If you are really close to the weight capacity of your monitor mount, you are testing the edge of what the mount is comfortably capable of. This can result in poor performance, including monitor sagging. 

If you are above the weight capacity of the monitor mount, don’t be super surprised if you experience monitor mount sagging. 

Here are some high-capacity monitor mounts that would be a good replacement. Keep in mind that higher weight capacity mounts usually result in higher costs. 

Great Option

Max Screen Size: 35 inches
Max Weight: 33 lbs.

Premium Option

Max Screen Size: 49 inches
Max Weight: 42 lbs. 

Affordable & Heavy Duty Option

Max Screen Size: 34 inches
Max Weight: 77 lbs

These mounts will make easy work of any sagging issues you may have with their high-weight capacities. If you have a curved ultrawide monitor, these should still work well. 

Sagging When Using Ultrawide Monitors

If you have an ultrawide monitor and it’s sagging at the tilt joint, double-check that your mount is compatible with ultrawide curved monitors. If it’s not, you may have trouble forcing it to work.

You will be better off upgrading to one of the monitors mentioned above. 

Ultrawide monitors that curve away from the mount put more torque on the tilt joint compared to other monitors. The monitor curves further away from the tilting joint, which pushes the center of gravity out further from the joint. 

It’s like holding a weight close to your chest versus holding it while your arm is completely stretched out. It’s harder when the weight is further from the joint. 

Ensure Mount Is Not Sinking Into the Desk

This last fix is for those with weak tables. We have a dedicated article on how to mount monitors to weak desks. 

If your desk is weak or an IKEA paper-filled model, you will find that table clamp monitor mounts can sink into the table surface. Check out this video where a user experiences this. 

In our article on mounting to weak desks, we talk about reinforcement plates and other methods to spread the load of your monitor mount. Most users that don’t have a solid wood desk could benefit from using one of these load spreaders.