Gaming LCD Monitor problem

[FrEEz902]

About a week ago, my LCD monitor wouldn't turn on. The LED would be green but nothing would show on the screen. I tried disconnecting the monitor from the computer, but no message would pop up telling me that there's no input detected. SO I unplugged the monitor power for a few seconds, then replugged it, and it worked. Now... ever since then the monitor has been doing this some time or another, but always after i replugged it, the monitor would work fine.

Today however, i found my monitor to be black (had left the computer on to download all night). I move the mouse, nothing happens. I am 100% sure the computer is on, and the monitor LED lights green, yet the monitor looks the same as if it was turned off (no backlight or anything) After trying to turn it off and on again, unplug it and replug it, mess around with the pc-monitor cable, i noticed two things:

1. If i have the monitor unplugged, then i replug it in and turn on the monitor, the screen will flash for a quarter of a second as if i had a black page opened, then it would be as if it was turned off. If i try to turn off the monitor and turn it on again, it won't flash anymore. If i unplug the monitor, wait a few seconds, and replug the monitor, then turn it on, it would flash for a quarter of a second then act as if it's turned off

2. The monitor makes a very high pitched screeching noise that i'm sure if i had a cat or dog they would be crazy by now.

The monitor is a Viewsonic 17" VA712, i had it for about 3-4 years. OH , and to save you the trouble, i'm 100% sure it's not the videocard. The videocard is brand new and is awesome, and if it was the videocard, the monitor would at least detect that there is no input when it is unplugged from the computer. From my very brief and very recent research troubleshooting trying to find a solution on the internet, i found out that there are problems mainly with the backlight and less commonly the inverter.

I have two questions:
1. How can i tell that my backlight is broken? Because I don't want to spend money buying a backlight only to find that the backlight was fine in the first place.

2. Will it be worth it to fix? The monitor itself costs about $143 from amazon, so i don't want to pay $100 to fix a $143 monitor.

THanks in advance

EDIT: IT seems to be working now, but i'm not sure how long this will last :/

 

[moose3]

1) If it's a backlight or just the circuit board for controlling the backlight (burns out in laptops) then if you shine a light on the screen or lay it down and angle a lamp at it, then you would still see the graphics, just faintly. Kind of like an old GB or GBA, except there is no light colored screen to contrast the pixels. If not, then the whole unit might be going bad.

I say this because I had an old laptop with similar results. I could see the image, just barely with extra light angled at the screen, and if I would switch the output between the LCD and the external monitor, similar to your unplugging, it would occasionally turn back on. Sometimes work for weeks, sometimes not. I think it might have been the equivalent to a ballast on a fluorescent light that had gone bad, but I can't remember.

2) I think at the time I was looking, I saw some info on the web and the small circuit board could be bought on ebay. I don't think it was that expensive, maybe in the $20-$30 range, but the laptop was used as if it was a desktop, so I just used an external monitor myself instead of trying to fix it.

Good luck.

 

[adriande2]

Except for the screeching noise, I had the same problem. I just got a new one.

 

[FrEEz902]

Well, i woke up this morning to find that my brother replaced the LCD monitor with an old CRT monitor which was barely working that we had stored in a corner of our house. I will try the angle thing. I actually kind of hope the whole thing is busted, so that I have an excuse to get a 19-22" widescreen HD monitor as a replacement

Thanks both of you for the help

EDIT: Yeah, i can barely see the image, but it's there, so I think it's definitely the backlight. I need to get this fixed as soon as possible, the CRT monitor burns my eyes.