Weird problem with Samsung 950p monitor; LG or Niewsonic: which?

[gazza]

After only 4 years, my Samsung 950p gave up (I bought it as an end of line
model.) For no apparent reason, sometimes the sides wobble, and then, from
the center towards top and bottom, the screen gets fuzzy. If I change
screen resolution, it's OK. Then, it gets fuzzy and I must change
resolution again. Etc. Samsung suggested that they maybe could fix the
problem for close to the price of a new 19" CRT monitor. Without the
guarantee, of course.

Sometimes the screen is absolutely perfect for an hour or two, so I doubt
it's a big problem but, for a lack of service at a decent price on CRT
monitors, it seems I'll have to scrap it, unless you can give me an idea
of the problem. If it's apparently not a major problem, maybe I could get
somebody to take a look. If not, I'll have to go for a LCD, though I'm
less than enchanted by the technology.

I'm considering 2 LCD monitors. The one that best fits my needs --
writing, browsing the net, looking at pictures, DVDs (well, maybe one day)
-- would be a LG L1952T, also sometimes refered to as L1952TX, apparently.
300 cd/m2, contrast 1400:1, DVI-I (standard DVI, I suppose?), 8ms. Picture
quality seems OK. Price: $289 CAN.

The Viewsonic VX922, is less bright (270 cd/m2), the contrast is not quite
as good (700:1, if I remember well), but it's a 2ms, a monitor for gamers.
Accordingly, it's $50 more expensive: $339 CAN.

Salesman ALL tell me that I'd be much better off with the Viewsonic. They
tell me that the Viewsonic quality is much better. The VX922 looks like a
hot seller for Viewsonic, so maybe the price is set a bit lower than for
other models.

A friend, who knows more about electronics than I, told me that, besides
pixels dying, the main problem with LCDs is screen fade out. So, unless
Viewsonic's pretention that their light source has a 40,000 hrs long life
(other models have a 50,000 hour life expectancy, though) I suppose I'd
theoretically be better off with the LG.

But I'm not a gamer and never will be. My feeling with LG support is not
very good: they don't even have an 800 number for support!

What is your experience with both Viewsonic and LG? Which monitor would
you go for?

G'day, an experienced technican would use an isolation transformer as
your set is a live chassis, that is above earth, if you don't have
access to an isolation transformer be extremely careful and try the
following. Making sure that the set in unpluged from the mains supply
(power point) remove the rear cover and then attach the normal input
that is aerial/component etc, plug into mains and let it soak (run
until the fault appears, sometimes I have used a hair dryer to generate
excessive heat to induce the fault) when fault appears I would use
Freeze (a can of freeze can be purchased at any spare parts supplier or
even Tandy's) to various components to see if that fixes the problem.

From your description it souns like it is in the line deflection area.

To locate this area look for when the CRT (cathode ray tube) EHT (extra
high tenion) plugs into and follow that down to the boubler/tripler and
flyback/line output transformer. The high voltage that is residual
after turning set off is the EHT and in most sets there is a flat spade
that attaches to the aquadag (metal cover surrounding the CRT (also
called the picture tube) via a twisted wire connector, I doubt if you
would need to use this. I hope I have given you a couple pointers mate.
cheers gazza