The other evening, while innocently perusing the SDMB, my monitor goes black and begins to emit an incredibly loud buzzing noise. I turned it off. After a few hours or so I turned it on again and it did the same thing. I turned it off. Now I’ve salvaged an old 14" monitor (1" viewable), and am killing my eyes trying to read on it (the color’s a little messed up). Anybody know anything about computer monitors? Can they be fixed? Are they expensive to repair? Is it possible to “do it yourself”?
A good sign to tell when your monitor is on its way to Screen Walhalla is when chara ters sta t di ap ar ng fr m yo r scr en.
Or, shortly, it’s probaby a goner. And yes, they’re expensive to fix and usually cheaper to replace.
Something has come loose inside the monitor, either a transformer or coil winding or a plate on the tube. The monitor will never work again at the same resolution you were using, but it might be able to limp along at a lower resolution until you get a new (better) monitor. In Windows, go to Display in your control pattern, select Settings and drag the Desktop Area bar to the left, FWIW.
Look at the back of the monitor, look at the date, what is it?
Also, when you change monitors you have to tell the computer what monitor you put on through display properties. Otherwise youll usually get a weird flicker.
This has been mentioned here before bu tit bears repeating:
DO NOT FIX MONITORS OR TV’s UNLESS YOU ARE TRAINED TO DO SO!
They are actually quite dangerous. Inside are some capacitors that hold a charge even if the set is unplugged. Touch the wrong thing and you could get anything from a bad burn to a deadly (yes…DEADLY) shock. No matter what it is guaranteed to hurt…a lot.
Don’t go there…
Usually it is cheaper to replace the monitor than it is to repair it but ya never know. Take it to t TV repair shop that’ll look at it for free to get an estimate then decide.
Sounds like the high voltage transformer going. It’s cheeper to buy a new monitor than repair it normaly.
One last ditch effort for a loose connection turn the monitor upside down on the floor and shake it a bit. Try it now. still doesn’t work? Buy new one.
I made a telvision my sister got rid of work for three years after doing this.
Any person doing the above actions assumes all responsibilty for their own actions.