Ignore this poster. It's a troll.


Van Chocstraw wrote:
I've got a Dell Ultrascan 1000HS Model D1025TM that was manufactured in
May of 1998. It's quite similar to the Sony CPD-200GS (17" Trinitron
tube) without the audio. I'm the original owner and have had no
problems with it for 7 years until last week. The picture was fine, no
shaking, no blurriness, warm-up time around 20 sec., no dimness, no
strange sounds, nothing. It was perfectly fine.

All of a sudden last week I turned it on one day and after about 10
minutes the screen went black. There was no change in the picture
before this happened. At the same time the picture went black the green
light on the power button also went out. It didn't change to amber, or
start blinking. I did hear a relay click out, as is normal when you
shut it off.

About 3 or 4 seconds after going black, it seemed to go into its initial
power-on startup sequence again. The degaussing relay kicked in, I
heard the static hum, then the other realy clicked, the green light on
the power button came on, the degaussing relay dropped out and it seemed
to be warming up again. But instead of completing the startup sequence,
after about 5 seconds the green light went out again and I heard the
relay click out again. This cycle then repeats itself over and over.
At power-on, 3 relay clicks and the light comes on, then after a few
seconds the green light goes out simultaneously with a relay click.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

If left off for an hour or so it will power on normally and display its
usual crisp, clear picture. There are absolutely no defects in the
picture. Brightness, contrast, changing screen resolutions on the PC
(800x600, 1024x768, 640x480) all work normally and the picture is fine.
But after it warms up, *click* and the light goes out and the
startup-shutdown cycle starts again.

I unplugged the video cable from the PC to see how the power-on
self-test would go and it came up normally with the "No Video Signal"
message and the color bars, so that test passed.

I'm trying to decide what to do. In a past life I've done a little
soldering on a TV set or two (15 years ago) and I have the service
manual for it. Does the problem sound familiar to anybody? If it was
something like a cold solder joint I could probably remove the boards
safely and inspect them. Or, I could take it to a repair shop where I'm
guessing a repair might run around $100 or so. Or I could order a
refurb unit (same model) from a place I found online for $100 shipped
with a 90-day warranty. Or I could buy a closeout (but still new)
Viewsonic PF77 for $125 shipped.

I'm not ready to make the leap into an LCD panel yet. Good ones are
still relatively expensive, and there's no such thing as an all-purpose
LCD panel. The LCD that does everything I need it to do hasn't been
built yet for under $600.

I know in my head the new Viewsonic is probably the way to go, but in my
heart I hate to throw the Ultrascan out, especially since it appears, at
least to me, like the problem might be very easy to fix. As I said, the
picture is still bright, clear, and rock solid when it's on. I would
appreciate any advice or tips from those who know more about these
things than I do. I can't keep staring at this _really_ old and blurry
MultiSync 3D for much longer. My eyes are bad enough.

Thanks in advance,
VCS