Conned?

Killajaz · 4 May 2007 at 18:16

Hi... just picked up a used Dell p1110 which is basically a 21" Sony CRT with Trinitron, some of the best CRT's around.

I paid peanuts as he said the resolution was blurry at 1600x1200 and higher.
As I game at 1280x1024 it dont bother me. However, now that I have plugged it in the colours are totally washed out. It all looks very grey and bleak.
As soon as I open an app it flicks like if it tries to resize the screen.
The picture is not sharp either...z

Across the screen there are also some horizontal green lines. This is not the two grey lines which you always have in Trinitrons.

He said the monitor has not been used for some time. Could it be that it is cold and need to warm up, or is it simply borked like I suspect?

mystify_YOU · 4 May 2007 at 23:08

Interstingly my current old Dell CRT has the same characteristics as yours as far as the horizontal lines go. I am about to upgrade to a new screen, but I would never sell this monitor to anyone - it is going straight in the bin.

As fas as it warming up, I'm not sure about the colour problems etc, but the horizontal lines have been on my monitor for about 2 years now, with 10 hours usage a day (this includes a graphics card change so it's definitely the monitor that is the problem). I doubt those will go. (Although I must say mine are not green - more red/blue).

Good luck with it though.

Hades · 4 May 2007 at 23:28

I have to say, it looks faulty to me.

AtreuS · 5 May 2007 at 00:18

Take it to a tv repair place. They will know best. Hopefully its a simple job to repair.

I had an IIyama a few years back that looked very similar to the pic you posted, got it fixed for about 20quid.

Killajaz · 5 May 2007 at 09:56

Well I have been finding some interesting stuff about this particular model.
The grey shade/washed out colours is a brightness problem which is very common with this screen due to poor capacitors.

I have brightness set to 0, green bias set to 0 and it still looks terrible. Many have the same problem. It can be fixed via hardware, but it would probably cost more than the £15 I paid for it.

I could return it, but that is 65 miles away which means petrol costs... doh.

kumar101 · 5 May 2007 at 11:57

All CRT Tubes degrade over time happens to Tellys as well. End up with washed out colours, loss of focus and very dull looking.

The two lines are on all Trinitron tubes. Think might have to bite the bullet on this one and chuck it in th skip!