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Author Topic: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.  (Read 2354 times)

Qloos

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I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« on: October 25, 2010, 03:22:14 am »

This monitor was really old.  It was late in it's 5th year when it started to go on me; the screen turned dark.  I could hardly see the icons on my windows 98 screen.  I was desperate, because I really wanted to play some Global Operations without the handicap.  Forced to wear night vision goggles on bright maps, I was the joke of the server.

"Why you wearin night vis on sri-lanka noob?"
"I cant see without them, my screen is really dark. . ."
"Lol!"

So finally I had had enough, I searched the internet for a solution.  A dubious one presented itself: "This program will increase screen brightness and contrast beyond it's normal limits."  It seemed perfect, I dowloaded it and ran it with haste and started playing Global Operations, immediately.  I could play dark maps like COLOMBIA again!  I even managed to get a knife kill on that faggot bot drug lord. 

But then I started to smell something that reminded me of burnt glue. . . and then my monitor caught on fire.  In a panic, I grabbed my customary jug of water and doused my monitor.

The moral of the story is, dont trust dubious solutions.
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Enzo

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #1 on: October 25, 2010, 03:26:12 am »

cool story bro.

"This program will increase screen brightness and contrast beyond it's normal limits."
Whatever you're doing, this is always a big red flag. There is usually a limit for a reason.
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Derekristow

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2010, 04:07:10 am »

Hey, if the monitor was already on its way out then no big loss, right?

Did you find out what was wrong with it?  I have three different busted monitors laying around, but I've heard getting a monitor fixed is generally more expensive than buying a new one.  A cheap fix would be nice.
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Retro

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #3 on: October 25, 2010, 04:11:40 am »

Your 'customary' jug of water? How often does this flaming monitor thing happen to you?

Blargityblarg

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #4 on: October 25, 2010, 04:37:07 am »

Your 'customary' jug of water? How often does this flaming monitor thing happen to you?

Once per monitor.
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Jopax

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #5 on: October 25, 2010, 04:47:36 am »

Global operations, i remember that, cool game.
On the monitor i can't say much, but i do have one, Gateway 2000, i think it's over ten years old, 15" of pure resilience.I remeber when we were moving and i was packing my old PC, when i moved the monitor away from the wall i found a rather large hole in it.Apparently in my fits of rage i would grab the damn thing and shake it rather violently, this caused the big hole on the wall but there were no scratches on the monitor itself, and the damn thing is still working perfectly.
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IronyOwl

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2010, 04:49:36 am »

Hey, if the monitor was already on its way out then no big loss, right?

Did you find out what was wrong with it?  I have three different busted monitors laying around, but I've heard getting a monitor fixed is generally more expensive than buying a new one.  A cheap fix would be nice.
I think he meant the whole adding water to a presumably electric-based fire thing.

In terms of fixing monitors, find out how they work and do it yourself, or give up on them. Specific fixes might present themselves in some cases, but for the most part you either understand it well enough to fix it under most circumstances, or it's just "broken" and there's no real way to tell why.
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Virex

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2010, 09:34:54 am »

If it was a CRT (highly probable), probably either the cathode ray tube or the phosphorus layer was getting damaged. The program you downloaded essentially overcharged the cathode ray tube, causing it to emit more electrons and thus intensifying the light emitted. Problem with that is a.) it results in blurrier images and distorted colors because the electrons repel each other and b.) you'll fry your electronics.
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Akura

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2010, 10:10:26 am »

Yeah, I don't think CRT monitors are supposed to last more than 5 or so years. When the last two I had died, they didn't just dim, they blacked out and died. Kind of like a sudden heart attack as opposed to undetected internal bleeding caused by liver degregation.
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Nikov

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #9 on: October 25, 2010, 01:10:55 pm »

Oh no. I got into a huge shitstorm of an LCD versus CRT debate on Mount and Blade where everyone called me grandpa for loving my CRT. I see that debate about five posts away, so everyone get on your asbestos suits if you're posting from this point on: we've got a fire hazard.
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Virex

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2010, 03:06:13 pm »

Yeah, I don't think CRT monitors are supposed to last more than 5 or so years. When the last two I had died, they didn't just dim, they blacked out and died. Kind of like a sudden heart attack as opposed to undetected internal bleeding caused by liver degregation.
Depends on the make probably. I bet some of the oscilloscopes used at our university are way beyond their sell-by date ;)
Most CRT's will probably suffer from ablation of their electron source or damage to the phosphorous layer at some point, especially if the same part of the phosphorous layer is irradiated for a long time (hence the screen savers of old). Same thing happens with plasma screens since they also use a phosphorous layer.
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Akura

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #11 on: October 25, 2010, 05:22:46 pm »

Oh no. I got into a huge shitstorm of an LCD versus CRT debate on Mount and Blade where everyone called me grandpa for loving my CRT. I see that debate about five posts away, so everyone get on your asbestos suits if you're posting from this point on: we've got a fire hazard.
Now now, there's no reason to start Napalmamania 2010(oh dear god, why? -_-) over this. Sure, LCD screens are smaller and last longer, but I think they're more limited. I doubt mine is more than a year or two older than since I've had it, but it's hard-limited to a 1024x768 resolution, thus preventing me from playing Aurora.
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Funk

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #12 on: October 25, 2010, 06:03:09 pm »

CRT's do have there good points,you can use them as both foot rest and shelf space.
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Agree, plus that's about the LAST thing *I* want to see from this kind of game - author spending valuable development time on useless graphics.

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Eugenitor

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #13 on: October 25, 2010, 06:09:00 pm »

I used to work in a place where the death of a CRT was a regular event. A monitor would pop every month or two and the magic smoke would come out.
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Heron TSG

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Re: I once had a monitor. A tale of old.
« Reply #14 on: October 25, 2010, 06:25:12 pm »

Yeah, I don't think CRT monitors are supposed to last more than 5 or so years.
Really? I've got an old CRT television that came from the early 80's. This monitor I'm using is from '98. My high school's oscilloscopes work fine after nigh-forty years of use. I think it depends entirely on the quality of the cathode ray tube.
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