ok, this is not strictly about "alpha-osf" -- this is just about some
DEC accessories we happened to purchase with alpha workstations. but
this really has me spooked and i hope someone here can tell me i'm not
crazy.
i have (had) a VRC16 (16" multisync monitor, circa 1993) at home and
an identical VRC16 sitting here at work. both have been happily
working, one driven by the standard PMAGB-BA turbochannel framebuffer
card and one attached to a PC.
yesterday, the one at home suddenly went "white"; that is, the tube
went very bright and the contrast went away. the result is a uniform
"ghost" or "fog" effect, but bright rather than dim -- i can still see
the outlines and colors of whatever's displayed, but it's faded by the
brightness. no amount of control fiddling gets it to a reasonable
state. flipping the on/off switch to enable the degausser doesn't do
anything, either.
note that the image is otherwise perfectly intact (correct colors,
good focus). there are no weird retrace lines, no geometry changes,
no loud buzzing, no smoke or arcing.
today (as in, about 5 minutes ago) the SAME THING happened to the one
on my desk at work. i actually saw it happen, this time -- the screen
suddenly got very bright and stayed that way.
any thoughts? is this a common failure mode for these things? i've
never seen this before in many years of computing and it's just too
weird that i hit the same failure mode twice in 24 hours. someone
with a lot of VRC16s in their shop must have seen this.
i don't *think* i did anything. i don't put coke cans on my monitors,
or drop cookie crumbs into them, or drop them frequently. my personal
hygiene is about par for this place, i guess, and i do not emit
unusual amounts of (non-thermal) radiation, to the best of my
knowledge. but now i'm afraid i'll kill my VRC21.. :-)
--
Paul M. Aoki | University of California at Berkeley
aoki_at_CS.Berkeley.EDU | Dept. of EECS, Computer Science Division #1776
| Berkeley, CA 94720-1776
Received on Thu Sep 10 1998 - 11:54:23 NZST