The Bad

[vakkotaur]

I've heard the odd high-voltage *snap* from my monitor at home for a while and it was getting more frequent. Last weekend or such I had had enough and pulled the case off, carefully made sure the high voltage was discharged, and cleaned it out. I had figured that it was just dust that built up providing a low(er) resistance path and cleaning it out would take care of things. No such luck.

Last night it got much worse. Instead of the odd occasional *snap* it became rather regular, and frequent. Shutting the monitor down to let it cool off didn't help. The image got huge, even after setting the controls to minimum. The brightness was dark. The power-on degauss seems to be gone. I shut down the system nearly blind, just to have it be a controlled shutdown. Curiously the on-screen settings were still nice and bright, showing that the tube isn't dead, and the monitor isn't completely gone... yet.

So tonight jmaynard and I will be going to Mankato to check out monitors. I don't know what I'll get. It could be another CRT, it might be an LCD if I see one that looks good and is reasonably priced.