Defective Monitor

Hi Guys
Is anyone in this group knowledgeable about computer Monitors.
If so I have a question.
I have a 4 1\2 year old 19 inch Monitor (tube type) by ViewSonic for
awhile now the display has being somewhat dime. I have the brightness
at 100% and it’s still hard to make out parts of a jpg that have dark
colours in them. In your opinion is the monitor worth fixing. If it’s
a component that could be changed for around $100 I would get it fixed
or is this type of problem related to the picture tube itself.
Thanks for any advice
Nikki

 

The Master needs to know if other things are dark as well?

 

Yes the monitor is dark all the time for every thing of course we dont
notice it as much when we are using MS Word or Excel because the back
ground is white. but any thing with colour in it is dark even the task
bar on my desk top e.g. I use Firefox and the icon is on my quick start
I can hardly make out the tail thats on the top of the icon. I just
noticed I have a windows XP default background on my desk top its of a
pic of a fall season with trees and leaves I have this window open but
reduced in size so I can see about 3 inches of the back ground all
around thin email Im typing the back ground appears really dark but hen
I click on the blue title bar of this email and move it behind and below
my task bar the back ground gets brighter when I bring the email back up
the wallpaper gets darker again.
Thanks
Nikki

 

There is a Screen Adjustment control on the High-Voltage transformer
(flyback) that controls the background brightness. Just take the cover
off, turn the set on and display your normally dim picture. Turn the
bottom control knob on the transformer and watch the screen. Adjust it
so that you can just barely see the grey around the sides of the
raster.
Note: the flyback is the black transformer with the big red wire going
to the top of the picture tube.
Hope this helps...
John

 

Does it have a lot of hours on it? The problem could be the tube going
weak, but it could also be something simple. I've seen bad capacitors
cause a dark picture, and sometimes resistors in the screen grid circuit
change value.

 

Is the onscreen function display also dark?

Tom

 

You might be right, but I'm guessing that this will wash out the
screen.

Too bad it isn't a TV if the CRT is dying, because you can sometimes
milk 6-12 months with a juiced up scan-derived heater modification. I
doubt that there are any supplies in the set that are tough enough to
take an 8 VDC heater tap as an add-on.

Tom

 

Thank guys for all your help I did what jdgill suggested. I took the
cover off and adjusted accordingly the screen is allot brighter now
Nikki