The monitor is a Sylvania Pd-80A Flat Panel LCD monitor. It does this behavior even if it is not connected to the PC. I press the power button and it flashes for a second and goes black. The power button light goes from green to orange. I'd rather not spend $50 to find out, "Yep...it's broke!". Does this sound like a familiar problem to anyone? Fixable? Any ideas?
Test it on another PC. If that doesn't work, either exchange it at the store you bought it from or get in contact with Sylvania about a replacement.
This is a used monitor that I picked up from a friend. Just wondering if there was some user replaceable part to fix the problem.
This isn't necessarily a monitor problem. Some monitors have a feature that when they don't recieve a signal from the computer they will go into a power-saving mode. If you have another monitor plug it into the computer and see if you get anything on the screen. If you then try the broken monitor on another computer that you are sure works and see what it does. Once you have confirmed that there is actually a problem with the monitor then check the connection and see if any of the pins are damaged. It may be getting some kind of signal that tells it to enter power-saving mode which could be the fault of a broken or bent pin. Let me know how it goes.
Ok - here's the results: Checked the pins - they're all good. Checked the refresh rate - 60 MHz Power light - actually stays green when connected It even does this when first turning on the computer and monitor - in any order, so before the Windows drivers take effect. No memory count up, hardware list, boot menu, etc. It actually seems like it's a problem with the monitor itself - I was wondering if someone knows if they can be fixed easily for this type of problem.
It would be nice to know for sure. Have you tried plugging another monitor into the same computer? Also have you checked the contrast, brightness, etc to make sure they're not all turned down?
Yes, my usual monitor works on that computer. It's not any adjustments because i does briefly (1 second or less) flash when I turn it on and looks normal.