Two monitors going on the fritz...

[zedd151]

As some may know, about a year and a half ago I bought two complete computer packages from a third party vendor (computer repair and refurbishing company) from amazon incl. mouse keyboard and 1280x1024 monitor. Each computer was $130 USD. Not bad, hmmm? Well anyway the first monitor is starting to have faint but visible horizontal lines streaming across the screen. Not a huge problem until I need to edit bitmaps for example. Okay, I thought... I do have another monitor to use. I use it occasionally in the shed, my man cave for when I don't want to be bothered by things going on at the house. So I went and got that monitor and hooked it up to my current computer. Now this monitor doesn't have the same issue as the first one mentioned. It does however have a small black area on the right side of the Windows 7 taskbar near the notification area. Slowly though, there is blue 'leaking out' for lack of a better term from that black spot. It is hot and humid here in Louisiana so probably from the humidity/moisture in the air. I'm hoping if that's the case, it will dry out over time. If not, I'll revert to the other one. Will have to keep leaving hints, maybe Santa Claus will bring me a new (or refurbished I don't really care) one this year.
Remove attached image, as it has served its purpose.

[NoCforMe]

It's a tumor!

[daydreamer]

It's a tumor!

no its Marge Simpson 
you should seen my old gaming laptop after I dropped it twice,still worked on front but backside I fixed with duct tape,it kept working long time after that,when new it was around 1000+ Euro

[NoCforMe]

It's a tumor!

no its Marge Simpson 

My god, you're right. How did I miss that?

[zedd151]

The blue area is slowly crawling up and a bit wider. I played around rubbing that (blue) spot with my thumbnail. It thinned it out a bit. But the black spot at the bottom is done, I believe. Must be layers internally getting seperated? Its still functional, but also kinda like a black eye at the same time. 

@Magnus lol


A little while later... Marge crawled back into her hole. That hole does look like its been gnawed on...
edit=removed image as it has served its purpose

[zedd151]

The blue area I told about is no longer migrating. But I am kind of tired of the black spot hiding the notification area icons. I'm going to switch back to the other monitor but still keep this one around as a backup. I've been hinting about my monitor issues around the house. Wink, wink...
If I had the resources, I'd scrap both of them. But since money is tight I'll deal with these minor issues for now.

[Shintaro]

It is a bit more difficult without model numbers, I am guessing they are LCD monitors and I only know a bit.
The black spot could be the backlight. One way to check is to shine a torch on it and see if you can see an image. It can be lit by leds, so part of the strip can go bad. Or it could be the LCD has reached the end of its life.

The stripes across the screen...maybe open it and have a look for bulging capacitors.

Other than that you would need to sit down with the schematics and a scope to follow signals.
That's about as much as I know.

[hutch--]

I chucked out the last CRT years ago and have used flat screens ever since. I have 32 inch flatscreens on 4 computers (1920x1080) but interestingly enough, I still own 3 x 24 inch monitors that are reasonably old and they still work perfectly. They were late enough to have HDMI plugs and the display quality is still excellent. Main factor with the 32 inch screens is my eyesight struggles on the 24 inch ones after a few hours.

[zedd151]

I am guessing they are LCD monitors

Yes they are. The one with the apparent damage was left in a high humidity area (backyard shed), which probably did not help it. Yes the caps are old and probably dried out. But I'm blind as a bat. so repairing it myself is out of the question not that I couln't otherwise do that. The black spot is physical damage to the LCD I'm pretty sure, seperation of the layers possibly. In both cases they are still usable, just not as pristine as they once were when new.

@hutch-- CRT, yuck. Haven't had one of those in ages.

a bit later...
Finally switched to the better monitor of the two. It is brighter than the other one as well. The issues with this monitor are not as notieable as the other one. Its a keeper.

[zedd151]

I just found out something....
When I switched the monitor to the better one, I no longer have the horizontal lines. 
The solution was replacing the cable (not power cable, I forget the name of the other cable) with a newer one (I grabbed that cable instead of the one that came with the monitor). Probably has better shielding, the lines were probably some form of RFI. (The monitor sits directly on top of the computer) YaY!

[TimoVJL]

What kind of interface monitors use ?

[zedd151]

Not HDMI, the previous multi pin cable. I forget what is called (memory leak). Oh, VGA? I remembered I think...

[hutch--]

A VGA is a flatted oval with from memory 9 pins. Its a very old interface. The once called a DVI is usually a white rectangular plug and a HDMI is a small oval shape with angled ends that uses a reasonably still cable. If the monitor will accept it, a HDMI usually has the highest frequency range and you get the best picture quality with it.

[zedd151]

VGA lol. These are circa 11 ish year old boxes

[FORTRANS]

Hi,

   The VGA plug has 15 pins.  Same size, sort of, as the 9 pin
serial ports.

Cheers,

Steve N.