Something horribly wrong with my monitor, what's going on here?

Kaseius

My monitor has been going batshit crazy on me lately. It first started out that when I turned it on, it would flicker really fast between bright and not bright, and would then slowly stop flickering and fix itself for the rest of the day or the light would go off completely until I turned the monitor back on and off. Now, it'll sit there buzzing a bit when I turn it on, the LED around the power button will flicker dim (what I have it set to) and then bright, and the monitor will display nothing other than what appears to be green or yellow waves before displaying nothing again, and without the backlight on. It'll do this for a while until it decides it wants to be a monitor again and then will flicker between bright/dark before finally going to normal. However, this time my PC lowered the resolution displaying on the monitor for some reason.

This thing is basically toast and I should try to get it repaired, right? Or do monitors have a "go crazy" setting I don't know about?

Robman

Your shits fucked. Although monitors are pretty cheap, I can't imagine that getting it repaired would cost less then getting a new one, unless you have a really really nice monitor.

NailbunnyPD

Its certainly abnormal behavior, but I don't know enough about monitors to give you an indication of what the problem is. I initially thought backlight bulb is dying, but if that were the case, the issue would only be the bright/dark flickers.

Ego

Sounds like the power inverter. Usually (other than physical trauma) it's what takes an LCD down. You may be able to order one for your model and replace it if you're not shy about getting your hands dirty. Usually only worth doing for laptops though, in my experience.

BeenieWeenie

I had a monitor once that started buzzing abnormally, but after several heated cussin' sessions and a couple palm slaps to the side it started sparking and smoking.

So, yeah. Even if it's a problem that can be fixed, it'd probably be just as easy to just get a new one.

Hell, head to your local pawn shop and you can sometimes find good LCD monitors (or you could roll old-school with a CRT like me, 15 dolla speshul) for 20-50 bucks.

Robman

Buying a nice monitor at a pawn shop is a great way to get property that is 100% not stolen

El Guaco

You didn't mention whether you were using a CRT or LCD, but the wavy line thing makes me think you're using a CRT. Most likely the power supply is going bad. The cathode ray which paints the screen depends on a steady cycle of 60Hz. If that rhythm is interrupted you get a wonky picture. The buzzing is also typical of power supply failure.

With LCD prices today, you'd be better off buying a new LCD and ditching the antique.

BeenieWeenie

Robman wrote: »

Buying a nice monitor at a pawn shop is a great way to get property that is 100% not stolen

Hey. The question was not the legality of the monitor. :winky:

Kaseius

El Guaco wrote: »

You didn't mention whether you were using a CRT or LCD, but the wavy line thing makes me think you're using a CRT. Most likely the power supply is going bad. The cathode ray which paints the screen depends on a steady cycle of 60Hz. If that rhythm is interrupted you get a wonky picture. The buzzing is also typical of power supply failure.

With LCD prices today, you'd be better off buying a new LCD and ditching the antique.

It was actually a brand new LCD that I bought less than 6 months ago -- I've put it in a package and hopefully sent it off to them for repairs (Samsung brand). If it never comes back, well.. I'm gonna have to find a way to buy a new one.

Barrakketh

Kaseius wrote: »

El Guaco wrote: »

You didn't mention whether you were using a CRT or LCD, but the wavy line thing makes me think you're using a CRT. Most likely the power supply is going bad. The cathode ray which paints the screen depends on a steady cycle of 60Hz. If that rhythm is interrupted you get a wonky picture. The buzzing is also typical of power supply failure.

With LCD prices today, you'd be better off buying a new LCD and ditching the antique.

It was actually a brand new LCD that I bought less than 6 months ago -- I've put it in a package and hopefully sent it off to them for repairs (Samsung brand). If it never comes back, well.. I'm gonna have to find a way to buy a new one.

You made sure to get a RMA number from Samsung and put it on the box, right?

Kaseius

Barrakketh wrote: »

Kaseius wrote: »

El Guaco wrote: »

You didn't mention whether you were using a CRT or LCD, but the wavy line thing makes me think you're using a CRT. Most likely the power supply is going bad. The cathode ray which paints the screen depends on a steady cycle of 60Hz. If that rhythm is interrupted you get a wonky picture. The buzzing is also typical of power supply failure.

With LCD prices today, you'd be better off buying a new LCD and ditching the antique.

It was actually a brand new LCD that I bought less than 6 months ago -- I've put it in a package and hopefully sent it off to them for repairs (Samsung brand). If it never comes back, well.. I'm gonna have to find a way to buy a new one.

You made sure to get a RMA number from Samsung and put it on the box, right?

O-of course!

I think..

Kaseius

Okay, monitor's home safe now, but there's something odd -- whenever there's too many dark colors on the screen, it will dim the back light. I also can no longer change brightness settings manually; it simply says "Not Available". Did they do something to mess with my monitor or is it some setting I'm unaware of? I know very little about these fine devices.

Ego

Sounds like dynamic contrast is turned on which is probably why manual brightness adjustment isn't available (basically the display is changing the brightness setting on the fly so as to provide more shades between 'dark' and 'bright'.)

Look through the settings on the display for dynamic contrast (it can be called other things, you may have to google your display model + dynamic contrast if that's the case to find out what you need to turn off) and you should be able to turn it off.

Kaseius

Ego wrote: »

Sounds like dynamic contrast is turned on which is probably why manual brightness adjustment isn't available (basically the display is changing the brightness setting on the fly so as to provide more shades between 'dark' and 'bright'.)

Look through the settings on the display for dynamic contrast (it can be called other things, you may have to google your display model + dynamic contrast if that's the case to find out what you need to turn off) and you should be able to turn it off.

Got it -- wonderful, thanks.