many thanks to:
Richard Eisenman
Woody Lee
Phil Loarie
Gyula Szemenyei
Gyula Szokoly
for sharing their thoughts and experiences. their messages (in
randomized order to protect the cynical and otherwise guilty ;-)
follow.
based on this sizable and controlled sample, i conclude (being a
trained research scientist) that this doesn't sound like a famous
pathological failing of the VRC16. the last message seems to suggest
that it is relatively common in general.
as a purely editorial comment, i have to say that this demonstrated
rate of catastrophic failure seems higher than that we've seen with
the older (Sony OEM) fixed-frequency monitors like the VRT19 -- those
have been starting to blur and fade, but haven't really been going
"pop." i will probably tell my budgeteers that they should expect to
have to buy a pile of replacement multiscan monitors in the next year
or two.
finally, in a token attempt to provide generally useful content, i
will add that in my recent web travels i came across the following
useful-seeming document, entitled "Notes on the Troubleshooting and
Repair of Computer and Video Monitors":
http://www.pacwest.net/byron13/sam/monfaq.htm
------- Forwarded Messages
We have some VRC16's (same age than yours, shipped with DEC
3000/300), and one of them has gone wrong a month ago: totally black
sreen. :-(
------- Message 2
Don't know whether I have an answer for you, but I have an equally
funky story, so you won't feel persecuted. I've got an Alpha
workstation with a 17" Digital monitor on it. Every once in awhile,
for no apparent reason, the mouse will go away; just disappear from
the screen cursor and all. No amount of fiddling will bring it back,
however, if I physically disconnect and reconnect the monitor, BINGO,
back it comes. I've gone through this routine with two identical
monitors and two identical cables, in all permutations, albeit on the
same machine. Don't have another workstation available for a trial.
Might be worth a try.
------- Message 3
I think that the warrenty just expired! :)
Hmmm. That is strange, we have had 4 of those monitors, one went bad
but I did not see what happened when it did. The two that we still
have here are working (for now, fingers crossed).
Sorry that I couldn't be more helpful.
------- Message 4
Same happened to one of the three monitors we had ('93
vintage). Second is about to go, I don't know which way it wil
fail. Replaced it with a ViewSonic 17PS.
------- Message 5
This sounds like either one of the grids in the CRT went belly up, or
the bias/offset for that control grid has a bad component. I think
more likely the latter, like a dried up electrolytic cap.
The fact that you still can see an image no matter how faint tells me
the guns (cathodes) are still working. The fog effect can be achieved
on the bench by torturing (bad bais) the control grids.
[T]he going flat rate repair at 3rd party depots is about $450 per
monitor.
------- End of Forwarded Messages
--
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 Fri Sep 11 1998 - 02:50:26 NZST