On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 08:18:04AM -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote: > Whatever is causing the problem is related to how long the screensaver > has been on. But note that the screensaver stops after a while and the > screen goes just black. And it also happens at the login screen after > rebooting.
While this might be a software problem, I'm voting for hardware because that is something I can make suggestions about. The backlight on some monitors powers off when commanded by the video driver (and whatever power management driver that is also controlling the screen saver). It may be having troubles turning back on. Fluorescent backlights use high voltage, and an "inverter" board to create it. Worst case, the fluorescent backlight tubes are wearing out. Those are very fragile and difficult to fix. If the inverter is going bad, that is a lot easier to fix, if you can find the right circuit board. If you can find someone with the same model of monitor and anger management issues, they might have a broken screen and a non-broken inverter circuit board. But the easiest thing to fix, and a likely cause of your problem, is dust. High voltage systems attract dust, and cat hair, and all sorts of crap, which can overload (temporarily) the inverter. Bachelor lifestyles are not good for dust control. Taking the monitor apart and cleaning the dust out with vacuum and Q-tips might help. Compressed air is fast, but creates static electricity. Keep in mind Mr. High Voltage likes to romp in power supplies and inverter boards, and he will romp on you if you let him. Unplug the monitor and wait an hour before opening it, so he will get bored and go away. But assume he does not. Use insulated tools, and an insulated work bench, insulated shoes, and one hand. I recently bought a cheap used computer projector with a bulb that failed after 3 minutes of power-on. I opened it and cleaned out a wad of dust around the high voltage section. It worked fine after that, and worked all day at Bar Camp last Saturday. Dust sucks, but they invented vacuum cleaners to suck it. Keith Keith -- Keith Lofstrom [email protected] Voice (503)-520-1993 KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon" Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
