About a week ago, my ViewSonic VA720 17" LCD monitor momentarily shifted slightly in color temperature, toward the warm side, and then it reverted to normal. The duration... maybe 8-12 seconds... was long enough that I saved all open files, thinking we were about to have a brown-out; but my desklight looked fine, and there were no computer glitches that I could detect.

The problem repeated once or twice more that day, say within a period of an hour, and it hasn't repeated since. I look at my monitor a lot and definitely would have noticed it if it had.

Now, this is the dilemma... VA-720s, I believe, only have a one-year warranty, and, if so, mine expires in about three weeks. I don't know whether it's likely to be the monitor (the backlight?), the graphics card (nVidia g-force4 MX4000), the computer power supply, or the incoming AC... but in any event, I can't reproduce the problem.

The computer is newer than the monitor... only about 5 mos old... and the dealer is extremely nice and willing to swap out components for a test, but it's not like I'm seeing anything now that would make changing the graphics card or whatever useful.

If this is a sure sign that the monitor is going, I would call or write ViewSonic, but I don't know enough to be insistent. Also, sending the monitor in and getting a temp replacement would be a big hassle, and ViewSonic isn't likely to see the problem any more than I've been able to since the first occurence.

Anyone experienced in this area?
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Hi Robert, that's a tough one, when an LCD monitor goes, it's gone, nothing you can do about it. Problem is knowing when it's going and when it's just a little glitch that will either not reappear or will just happen for the life of the monitor, or when that little glitch is a sign of impending death.

I'm not a huge viewsonic fan, though I've used their CRT monitors off an on, but I don't like them much.

You'll have to decide this one pretty quickly, I'd do some more research and find out if this is a known viewsonic issue or not.

I doubt it's any of the other factors you mentioned, I'd suspect the monitor first.

On the bright side, I've lived with a flakey laptop screen that sometimes doesn't display, if you moved the lid slightly, then you wiggle the lid a bit, reboot, and it displays fine, just was trying to take that stupid old laptop apart today to see if I could redo the connectors, but couldn't figure out how to get the laptop open, but it works fine when it works, then if I don't touch it, it keeps working, silly, one day I'll get an IBM and put this thing out of its misery.

Ok, that's off topic enough, short answer is, that's a decision you'll have to make, it's almost certainly your monitor.
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jeff - Thanks... It's helpful to be able to isolate the problem to the monitor without checking everything in the chain.

I'm not in love with the ViewSonic myself, but it's OK. I had hoped to get a Samsung, but they're expensive. Right after my Sony Trinitron CRT gave up the ghost I stumbled across the VA720 on sale for $300 after rebate, and the deal was too good to pass up. I figured I could always use it for the second monitor in a two-panel display, but hadn't figured on self-destruction... the warranty timer.



There may in fact be life after death. In researching the problem, I stumbled across a site that sells parts for LCD monitors. Not sure what the linking policy is on this forum, but I'll mention it without linking... lcdpart.com.

From what I can see, the replacement lamps from them for most LCD panels cost about US$10. From the photos on the site, the lamps appear to be delicate to put in, but the company also provides this service, though I can't find prices for that on the site. They have parts for laptops too.



You sum it up well. I'll call LCDPart and ViewSonic support and get a sense of what the glitch portends. I'm almost sure I'll have to wait until it happens again. It will be really good news if I learn that these things can be fixed. Thanks. I'll report back what I learn.
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You should have shopped around a bit, prices are dropping fast, a few weeks ago the most excellent samsung syncmaster 710-n2 17" was going for $230 + tax, after rebate, it's currently going for about $250 + tax after rebate, I have one, and am tempted to go dual monitor at some point soon.

The samsung is as good as people said it was, I was amazed when I got mine. Previous two: Viewsonic 17" crt, hated it, screen distortion, low quality. But adequate I guess. Then a Sony Trinitron, better screen/colors, but glare, man, the glare, that got very annoying. Finally opted for lcd, and do my eyes ever thank me for that.

Thanks for the link, that's very good info, linking policy here is useful links that point to valid, non-self promotional [spam that is] sites are always appreciated. We'd like to keep this completely loose though, since spammers know who they are.

I resisted lcd monitors for a while, I knew from laptop experience that lcd displays were EXTREMELY UNRELIABLE up until fairly recently, in fact I think around 2000 I was shopping for a laptop, and was shocked to discover that virtually all the major companies at that time offered only 3-6 month warranties on the screen, which is why I bought a used one then, figuring that with no real warranty, there was no real reason to buy new.

I think that situation has been rectified, plus now if I buy a laptop, I'd buy an IBM for sure, a used one probably.

There is this: if you are seeing a problem, and it's recurrent, but not reproduceable consistently, that's a very good argument for a return in my opinion, they aren't going to fix it, they almost never do, they'll just send you a new one, and since the downside of lcd monitors is that the more they are on, the sooner they die, and they die much more quickly than decent quality crts from everything I've read. So in almost all cases new is good, I almost never buy new stuff, but for certain things, monitors, mobo/processors etc, I'll almost always go new.

If you have the money, you could pick up a samsung, newegg.com or zipzoomfly.com both have that model for a decent price, return the viewsonic, get a replacement, then have dual monitors. If budget permits of course.
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Thanks... that is good to know. I got the ViewSonic a year ago, and I had been watching prices. Samsungs were a lot higher then.

PS - Just did a search. Search for 710N... The hyphen between the 0 and the N throws off Google. Yes, Newegg is $249 after rebate. The only thing that makes me hesitate about buying this particular monitor mail order is the dead pixel policy, which I'm now remembering from last year. 8 dead pixels is pretty stringent. It's tempting, though... particularly if I'd then have an extra monitor to enable exchanging the Viewsonic (assuming they'll take it).
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Yes, I agree, I don't really like newegg.com personally, I do almost all my hardware purchases at zipzoomfly.com, those guys are good, I've never had a problem with them, I ordered my samsung from them, perfect, all pixels fine, and then I ordered a client one from newegg.com, figuring, to be honest, hey, better learn by spending some else's money. Didn't like their shipping policy, didn't like the extra fees to process fast, zipzoomfly always processes fast, standard. And when I plugged the newegg purchased monitor in, there were some dead pixels, I noticed right away. That's not the most scientific study I'll admit, a sample of two, one good, one ok. Probably was coincidence, but given the rest of newegg's oddities, I tend to prefer the easy route, no problems.

Here's the zipzoomfly.com listing, with rebate currently $239, and they are located in Hayward I think.

<apology>Sorry about the hyphen, it's actually Samsung 710N-2 Syncmaster</apology>
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Going dual monitor is awesome, if you have the desk space. I use dual displays at work and it increases productivity drastically.

Unfortunately, at home I don't have the desk space to dual display. I'm pretty satisfied with my 19" crt for now. I've been thinking about going for a 19" lcd though. what do you think of this or this and why do this one cost so much more?

I've used new egg to get a dvd burner that I saw there on sale. It wasn't too bad. It was delivered pretty quickly. Though i've yet to have time to install it.
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I really like my Samsung, I read up on it a lot, and that's the brand most people seemed to like, once I got mine I can see why. I'd never buy an LCD that I haven't seen in person online though, that's a dangerous thing to do.

With the 19" monitors, the odd thing is they are bigger, but only support 1280x1024, at least the Samsung's you're looking at.

And 1280x1024 is fine on 17", keep in mind that a 17" LCD is roughly equal to an 18" or slightly larger CRT, so there's not that much difference between your current 19" and a 17".

Plus, if you go 17", for just a little more money than you'd pay for a 19", about $100, you can actually have two monitors.

Current pricing: 2 x $240 = $480
versus $380. You can get more deskspace by going to Home depot, buying 3 1x12x6' boards, screwing them onto 2x4s, bolting on 2x4 legs, bracing it, and there's your new large desk.

Much better than most computer desks I've ever seen, more room.

Or you can use a 4x8 sheet of 3/4 inch plywood, same difference.
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yea, I see the idea about the plywood, it's just the odd way my room is situated it just doesn't work. It's really too odd to describe.

Concerning the resolution, that's just the native resolution I thought. Can you not just simply increase it in your windows settings?
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No, that's how many physical pixels it has I think, it's not like a CRT.

If you increase it in windown, which I've tried on my 800x600 laptop, what happens is that the window simply goes off the screen by that amount of pixels.

You can drop it below the max, but you can't raise it above the max.

I worked in a very oddly shaped room a while ago, it was a hexagon, I think, maybe an octogon, I can't remember, I made my desk like this:

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that worked pretty well.
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