Monitor fried?!?

[BobWehadababyitsaboy]

OK, this has never happened to me before but just today I think i fried my monitor. I was starting up counterstrike getting ready to play some and while it was querying surveys and then suddenly the monitor started to give off a white smoke off the top and the picture started to blur. I figured it might be getting too hot so I quickly turned it off and unplugged it from the UPS. I have no idea what would cause it to start smoking like that it wasnt doing anything extra intensive. This was a generic brand 17" monitor I bought about 3 years ago. Settings were 1024x768 and frequency was set automatically. I had been using these settings for as long as I have had this monitor. The only difference is that I bought a new asus geforce 4 ti4200 about 2 months ago and have played many other games but havent played counterstrike on it. I have played counterstrike with video settings set to 800x600 and software video configuration. Now with the new card i set it to 1024x768 and Direct3D. After about 30mins of setting some options the monitor started smoking.

So I would like any ideas as to what caused this. Something with the Video Card or the settings in Direct3d and counterstrike or maybe the age?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

-Bob

 

[Willoughbyva]

Try asing in the video forum. Since you changed your video card and resolution settings, etc then it might have been a wrong setting in there somewhere. Can you find a website, booklet or something to tell you what your monitor can handle? What was your refresh rate? Does the monitor supprt what it was set at?

 

[DrJaymez]

highly unlikely that the game or the card did that. It was probably just that monitor's time. 3 years out of a cheapo CRT isn't too bad. It is possible that you were accidentally (due to winXP misunderstanding your monitor's plug and play) running at higher than supported refresh, but even that probably didn't cause this. Buy a new monitor and game on.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Most likely the high voltage regulator on your monitor finally gave up. I seriosly doubt that your video adapter had anything to do with it.

 

[BobWehadababyitsaboy]

well i was running win98 its not possible for a winxp thing to screw it up. according to this paper thin booklet i have here it looks like the 1024x768 setting goes up to 85hz and max is 1280x1024 at 60hz. so i dont think that was the problem. I just found it odd that it happened right then because i think all the games i had been playing were using OpenGL video and not direct3d and when i start playing direct3d it fries. I hadnt seen anything weird with the monitor the picture was still good and nothing fuzzy or shaky from some sort of power problem. Also i was wondering is there anything else i shouldve done to prolong the life of the monitor? Hadnt really done much as a way of maintenance for it except cleaning the screen and stuff like that.

Anyway thanks for all the help

 

[waitman]

Originally posted by: DrJaymez
highly unlikely that the game or the card did that. It was probably just that monitor's time. 3 years out of a cheapo CRT isn't too bad. It is possible that you were accidentally (due to winXP misunderstanding your monitor's plug and play) running at higher than supported refresh, but even that probably didn't cause this. Buy a new monitor and game on.

my last generic monitor blew up after right under 3 years, i was sitting there getting ready to put in a new harddrive and boom, loud boom scared the s$%t out of me, happened to be a capacitor. it Happens man. I took the case off and everything was full of dust, which probly did cause some overheating. I think the part was a couple bucks, but it as cheap so I just got another!

 

[BobWehadababyitsaboy]

havent opened it up to check it out yet was gonna wait until i could get another temp monitor from a friend or buy a new monitor to check what settings my direct3d was at. Then i could see if they were too high or something and better diagnose what mighta happened. Then take it apart and check it out my suitemate is a 4th year EE major so maybe he can do something. Thanks for the help.

P.S. Oh forgot to mention that settings were at optimal for refresh rate. So maybe something happened with windows detecting those optimal settings wrong or maybe it was just dust overload.

 

[waitman]

Originally posted by: BobWehadababyitsaboy
havent opened it up to check it out yet was gonna wait until i could get another temp monitor from a friend or buy a new monitor to check what settings my direct3d was at. Then i could see if they were too high or something and better diagnose what mighta happened. Then take it apart and check it out my suitemate is a 4th year EE major so maybe he can do something. Thanks for the help.

P.S. Oh forgot to mention that settings were at optimal for refresh rate. So maybe something happened with windows detecting those optimal settings wrong or maybe it was just dust overload.

whenever I have had a resolution rate too high in w98se the monitor just goes blank and you have to boot in safe mode I believe to reset the resolution. If you open up the case be extremely careful, cause you can get fried, still a lot of voltage in there I am told.

 

[DanTMWTMP]

Originally posted by: BobWehadababyitsaboy
havent opened it up to check it out yet was gonna wait until i could get another temp monitor from a friend or buy a new monitor to check what settings my direct3d was at. Then i could see if they were too high or something and better diagnose what mighta happened. Then take it apart and check it out my suitemate is a 4th year EE major so maybe he can do something. Thanks for the help.

P.S. Oh forgot to mention that settings were at optimal for refresh rate. So maybe something happened with windows detecting those optimal settings wrong or maybe it was just dust overload.

he won't be able to do anything unless he gets the schematic for the device.....other way is to check the continuity for every part of the monitor...eh..it'll take too long...
i thought the RR was the culprit cuz that's what did it w/ my monitor...but it seems that 3 yrs...generic 17inch..yeah, it was due to bite the dust..get a good brand now

gives you a great excuse to buy a 19 inch sony trinitron like i have..love it..hehehe