Monitor screen shrank to one vertical line.

[drewnashty]

About 15 minutes ago I was watchin a movie on my computer when all of a sudden the screen on my monitor just shrinks instantly down to one vertical line with a horizontal width of about 2 mm exactly in the center of the screen. I have checked the vga connector to the video card, turned it off waited a while... no smoke that I could see or smell has risen from the monitor. I have plugged in old 14incher that I have for now. It is a Viewsonic P225F. I can't really complain much since I bought it for around 120 bucks at a comp fair, and it was only that cheap because of a crack in the frame. Has worked perfectly since the day I bought it almost a year ago. I have been thinking maybe I wore it out with having the refresh rate so high for so long, 1156by864 res. at 100 hz. Searched google for similiar problem found nothing. What is the normal life expectancy of a monitor. I mean obviously some last a while since i have this 14incher that must be at least 7 years old. But then again I never pushed the refresh rate to the limit on that one. Anyone ran into any similiar problems? Or know of how much it cost to have a monitor looked at. I am willing to pay up to like 200 dollars to have it repaired considering it is a 600 dollar monitor.

[Aedan]

Sounds like the horizontal deflection circuit has stopped working for some reason. It's job is to change the beam's horizontal position. If it fails, the beam usually ends up resting down the middle of the screen.

You can always ask some people to give you a quote for repair. I'd expect a CRT monitor to last longer than a year - four/five years later they should still work, just not as brightly or as clearly as they originally would have done.

[surlyjoe]

that monitor has a full 3 year warranty, why dont you RMA it?

[Gizmo]

Yep, the horizontal deflection is shot. It's funny though, the spot-kill circuitry should have shut the beam off so that it doesn't saw your tube in two.

I actually had an old video game monitor one time that was build before they started incorporating spot-kill circuitry. Both the horizontal and vertical deflection went out (it was a vector graphics game, Battle Zone IIRC), and the beam sat there, burning a hole into the center of the screen, until it punched a hole through the tube. At that point, it nuked the high voltage supply and killed the monitor. When smoke started boiling out of the top of the game, that was when the customer finally decided to call and tell me that the game was broken.

[Daniel ~]

Man, I'd PAY to see that! ":O}

[drewnashty]

Alrighty well thank you very much party people.

I would RMA if I had the full 3 year warranty on it but since I didn't purchase it brand new and retail. Like I said I got it from a comp fair for 120 bucks because the frame was cracked. The seller plugged it in and showed me it worked and gave me a 30 day warranty. And I figured if it were broken I would know almost immediately.

[Daniel ~]

I've Lost one or six myself. They really don't seem to be good for more than three years....TOPS, most of mine...no all of mine have needed warrentee work at lest once.