Dell 2209waf monitor problem

[rlovison]

Hi all,

I'm still fooling around with my Dell 2209waf trying to figure out the problem. We had a lightning strike a while back that destroyed a few lights and phones. My computer and the Dell monitor were on a UPS backup which is also surge protected but when I checked on the computer, it was froze and needed to be rebooted. Everything worked fine until a few months afterward when the monitor would suddenly dim and color shift toward the red. It was still usable only the color balance and brightness changed. After a few minutes it would brighten back to normal. This went on for a year or so until finally it dimmed and never came back to normal.

I replaced the inverter board and there was no change. I took the entire unit apart down to the ccfl's and they all had just a slight blackening on each end. There is only 8000 hours of use on the monitor. I didn't test any of the bulbs individually.

Another strange thing is when I bring up a web browser or any program and then close it, there is a ghost of the window remaining on the desktop for a minute or so. Is this the way aging ccfl's behave? I'm just wondering if some chip got damaged on the power supply/logic board during the strike. Any input would be appreciated.

[Eric H]

I don't know how a defective monitor would retain a ghost window, if it did it would almost have to be in the electronics and not the back light.

Are you sure it's not your video card that's dying?

Otherwise I would suggest bad capacitors since that's the most common problem with just about everything electronic.

[rlovison]

No, it's not the video card as the monitor acts the same way on two other computers. Strange thing is I can't reproduce the ghost image again. What a pain intermittent problems can be.