StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I've got a Westinghouse flat screen monitor. Tonight it quit working. If I switch it on and off it works for a few seconds then goes dark. The power light stays on. I thought it was my POS computer at first, but I hooked the monitor up to my netbook and it does the same thing.

Any thoughts or ideas? Or am I buying a new monitor tomorrow?

After the screen shuts off, is there a soft, high-pitched whine coming from the back of the monitor? I've had a few LCD monitors come in with your exact symptoms, and in every one the power supply inside the monitor ended up being shot. If that's the case with yours, your options are either get a new monitor or replace the power supply, the former being the easiest one. Depending on the age of the monitor and availability of power supplies for it, it might be the less expensive option as well.

It's also possible that either the backlight or the power inverter for it are failing. If it's the backlight you might be able to find a compatible flourescent lamp in a hardware store, but if it's the inverter you're better off replacing the screen entirely.

This is a sort of stupid question that still has to be asked: have you removed, dusted out, and reseated the cable where it plugs into the monitor?

It had started whining every now and again the last few months. It's 4 years old, I think I'm just going to replace the thing. I should probably just get a whole new system while I'm at it.