I’ve never had this happen before. In fact, the monitor that died is the second oldest LCD (or “flat screen”) monitor I own. Er, owned.
Back in 1999 or so, I bought my first LCD monitor. I still have it! It’s a 1024-by-720 resolution monitor, 11-inches (I think), very heavy, and it works. The resolution is why I don’t use it; the resolution is just too low for it to be practical any more. But it was cool to have that monitor back when all you would normally see are clunky old CRT (glass) monitors.
The second LCD monitor I bought was a Mitsubishi 19-inch model. It’s the one that died.
The Mitsubishi has been my writing computer’s monitor since 2000 or maybe even before. It’s been a workhorse.
The other day, I noticed that the command prompt menu looked kind of fuzzy. Upon closer examination, I saw that the pixels had all grown shadows. The monitor was dying.
I could continue to use the thing, of course, but my eyeballs would frazzle. So I did a monitor swap.
My test computer, like my writing computer, had two monitors. So I got rid of the Mitsubishi and pulled one of the monitors from the testing computer. My writing computer is now square, set up as it was before with two monitors. (I keep the outline on one monitor and the chapter documents on another.)
The test computer now has a new Acer 24-inch monitor, one of those widescreens that everyone else seems to have these days. It’s a nice monitor, very thin, and extremely bright.
One of the reasons I chose the Acer is that it had multiple inputs: HDMI, DVI, and VGA.
I was surprised at how many of the widescreen LCD monitors had VGA-only input. That’s shocking. Today almost all the video cards are DVI.
The HDMI input also intrigued me as my mobile devices have HDMI output. So now I can hook up my phone to the monitor and watch a rented movie at glorious 1080 resolution.
By the way, the third oldest LCD monitor I own is the original Apple Cinema Display. I think I paid over $2,000 for that way back in 2000 or so. (By contrast, the Acer I just bought was $190.) The Cinema Display still works, but it lacks a home.
I’m amazed at how long-lived these LCD monitors are. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, it was routine to replace a CRT monitor every five years or so. They just burned out. That’s a much rarer occurrence with the LCD monitors today.
>That’s a much rarer occurrence with the LCD monitors today.
Well… unless the monitor is plagued with bad capacitors.
Comment by linuxlove — December 20, 2011 @ 7:30 am
Or evil spirits.
Comment by admin — December 20, 2011 @ 9:11 am
Say what you want about Acer and crappy laptops, but they make a fine monitor. I love mine, 23″, HDMI, VGA, and DVI, and it came with all the corresponding cables. I love it.
Comment by gamerguy473 — December 20, 2011 @ 10:53 am
The Acer I have seems to have an issue with waking up from Sleep mode. Aside from that, it’s fairly good. So far!
Comment by admin — December 20, 2011 @ 11:26 am
Flat panel (LCD, TFT etc) life if you look at the panel data sheets is in hours, CRT’s used to be in years. Okay they are easier on the eye, but die quicker and are not generally recyclable (a CRT after the Caps were discharged you could pull apart with ease). A question I want to know the answer to are flat panels greener than CRT’s???
Comment by glennp — December 20, 2011 @ 12:39 pm
My audio production studio is in my basement…the room has typical basement windows with a tiny lip of a sill. I used to leave the studio door open when out of the house…
Our indoor cat “Shadow” likes to stare out the windows around the house at other cats and birds…she’s been known to try to get up in the some basement windows, with varying success.
4 or 5 years ago, I had a beautiful 19” Sony LCD monitor (about $600 new) on the studio counter…just above it was a small bookshelf with a few books and my Far East Network Gold Mic award trophy, and above that the aforementioned window.
Shadow had apparently tried to jump from the counter, to the bookshelf and to the window and didn’t quite make it! I returned from a trip to find the monitor hanging from the counter by its cable…the Gold Mic lay on the floor next to it. When I powered up the computer, the monitor had what looked like a bullet hole in the lower left corner…beautiful rainbow-hued crack lines radiating around it…and a dent in the plastic just about the size of the trophy.
I now close the studio door when I’m away.
Comment by sibulsky — December 20, 2011 @ 1:19 pm