This monitor is about 3 1/2 yrs old. Is it normal for lcd's to go bad this quickly?
Depends on the monitor and the failure mode. Usually in my experience (ViewSonic VP930bs) they will either run or not run. I had a unit fail a few days ago which had run fine for about two years. This one will go back under the three-year warranty.
Trouble is, I also had one which failed out of the box and went back twice. So I can't say that my success rate with ViewSonic has been all that great. I'm running three of them (two now) 24x7, so the warranty is the big difference. In my cases, so far, the panels and backlights have been fine as far as I can tell but the onboard power supplies have been shizz.
I have the brightness turned all the way up now and it's still pretty dim, especially compared to the new one.
That sounds like a backlight issue if all the pixels are still hot. My experience is that 3+ years is pushing it as far as backlights are concerned. That's the most common failure mode as far as I can tell. At that point the monitor can be repaired but it's cheaper to replace it, IMHO. ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
