Dead Monitor

I think Vista killed my monitor.

OK, it's unlikely that Vista killed my monitor. My monitor has been quirky since the day I got it. But, while completing the final phase of the Vista upgrade that I performed on my main computer system today, my monitor turned itself off and has yet to power back on.

"Then, how are you writing this?" you ask? Simple.

I went and grabbed one of the piece of shit CRT monitors out of the garage and lugged it upstairs.

How is it that a gorgeous 17" Sony LCD monitor that is less than 2 years old is sitting here lifeless, while this no-name 17" CRT monitor that I bought for $79 in 1997 is working just fine? Granted, the dot pitch has me about ready to claw my eyeballs out, but it's working!

My Sony LCD has always been quirky. It has this problem where when I push the power button to turn it off, it turns it DEAD - ie. it turns off and I cannot turn it back on for 20 minutes, a half hour, an hour, two hours... all depends. It has never powered itself off though. It would run for days no problem, as long as I never turned it off. Usually, I'd turn it off when I went to bed (to save the screen), and by morning it would be back on standby and ready to turn back on. Not this time.

Vista was chugging along with its upgrade, and so I ran downstairs to cook some dinner. I came back upstairs, and the monitor was black, with no power or standby light. I rebooted the computer via a traumatic power button shutdown, hoping Vista was truly done installing. (It was). Still nothing on the monitor. Upon running to the garage, grabbing my P.O.S. monitor and plugging it in, voila - there's Vista, just waiting for me to tell it about my network.

I still have my Sony monitor plugged in but it hasn't come back to life yet.

The problem here is... this CRT monitor is so awful that I'm already getting a headache, and I've only been on the thing for 15 minutes or so. Looks like I'll be burning the plastic tomorrow to buy a new monitor. Might as well get that extra gig of RAM I've been wanting, while I'm at it.

On a side note... the Windows Vista upgrade went flawlessly. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. There's no way it was that easy. I'll post more about it when I actually believe that it worked.