Posting in Ayn Rands as usual, hopefully I can get some useful input.

I’ve got a relatively new (only 10 years old – really, for me, that’s “new”Log in to see images! Compaq monitor that’s got a frustrating problem.

When I first got it, as part of a computer system to refurb and clean up (the PC as old as the monitor as well – that’s another story), it didn’t seem to work at all. But if I turned the brightness and contrast all the way up, I could vaguely see some text on the screen. Not “the screen”, but a small part of what should be the center of the screen, blown up to the full screen. For example, on the Windows 98 boot screen, all I saw was the Windows logo that’s in middle of the screen, taking up the whole screen, and very very dim.

Then it started fading out, very slowly… so slowly, I didn’t even notice it was fading. Until now – I can’t see any picture on the screen AT ALL. Maybe if I shut off the lights and see it in the pitch dark. But it’s ****ing dead.

What the hell? The CRT tube itself obviously didn’t die… I doubt it would be “zoomed” like that. I don’t get it. Is it the power supply part of the board that’s to blame?

Armed with only a simple multimeter (and a wattmeter), what can I do to try and diagnose this? Google is very unhelpful as usual with any sort of advanced-knowledge searches, always trying to dumb my search down to “what is a monitor” or “plug it in”.

Or maybe the tube did die. Then I’m ****ed.

10 year old ‘new’ crt? what planet are you from?

SIG-ENABLING MOCK-CONGLER Posted:

10 year old ‘new’ crt? what planet are you from?

Planet poor. I’ve got monitors that are 15 years old…

Okay, this one isn’t “new”. It’s “old”. But it’s not “ancient”. Also: new to me. Log in to see images!

if all else fails, buy a new one, this one was brand-new in the box for 50 bucks about 6 months ago, because theyre trying to get rid of the old crt stock everywhere

SIG-ENABLING MOCK-CONGLER Posted:

10 years old is ancient for a crt, most of them live less than 4 years. also they dont even manufacture them anymore that i’m aware of, its all flatscreen now. as for fixing it, give it a smack on its side, then change the mhz to a higher setting. also if it has onboard controls try upping the bright/contrast

I don’t even own a CRT that’s newer than 4 years… and I’ve got about 10 of them. Also, like I said, brightness/contrast is all the way up, not to mention the “freakishly zoomed picture” thing.

SIG-ENABLING MOCK-CONGLER Posted:

if all else fails, buy a new one, this one was brand-new in the box for 50 bucks about 6 months ago, because theyre trying to get rid of the old crt stock everywhere

Not my computer, and 50 bucks is a ****ing ton of money for me.

SIG-ENABLING MOCK-CONGLER Posted:

also if you can manage to get the case off, hit the circuitboard with some canned air, it might be something simple like dust

Got the case off hours ago, and hit it with my air tank (60 PSI is the highest I could hold the connection together to, until I replace the ****ing hose tomorrow). Also got off the tube end-board and tried reseating it (for some reason it was screw-banded down to the neck of the tube), no help at all. =\

I think it’s a failed component somewhere, but in my world, one failed component is never ever a reason to throw the whole thing away Log in to see images!

i disagree, the thermal trans-doucher unit isnt flaggelating properly with the intermodial spasmoducer array, thereby jizzulating hypertrons into the goatselyzer, thereby inducing transmodulational weedmosities. yea

Buying myself a new 30’’ lcd monitor myself. So I can have 3 monitors, 4 keyboards, and 36 mouses to my gaming rig with like suroundunderground sound set up.

SimplyTHEBEST Posted:

You can try to change the vertical and horizontal to make it less horribly zoomed in, but I doubt that’ll actually do much. I suspect, for no reason at all, that the electron gun is too weak. It’s emitted electrons are less energetic than they should be, and so their trajectories are bent more by the magnetic fields and they don’t excite the phosphor as much. Also, the phosphor has probably been burned away from abuse.

It doesn’t really matter, since there’s nothing you can do to fix it at this point anyway.

Are you running a computer recycling center or something?

Surprisingly, that actually fully makes sense (and for those of you who have no idea what it’s referring to, it’s not Star Trek gibberish either), and is something I was suspecting. No blown capacitors on the board…

I just wish I had another one of the same tube that I could test in that setup, see if it does the same with a known good tube.

Also… not running a recycling center or something (except maybe out of my apartment), I just absolutely hate throwing out something with maybe a blown capacitor or some****, that’s just $5 away from working like new again. =(

edit: The controls are through an on-screen display, too… so I can’t change the H/V controls when I can’t see the screen at all… not that it would help Log in to see images! FalconFour edited this message on 12/06/2008 5:42PM

BUMPING

Its the CRT Tube, these Things get darker over Time.

The only possible Solution would be to Regenerate it,

there have been special Tools for this – many years ago.

I cant explain how this worked, they used High Voltage in a smart Way.

Its not really worth doing Research on this forgotten Art,

just throw it away.

Here is a Link on this Topic.