Monitor Crackling Noise again

[Michael]

Hi, my monitor made a very harsh crackling noise when opening a high
resolution video file in Winamp...I've heard that the noise could be
related to the voltage going to the monitor and something called
'arcing'.

Could it be related to my video card, my old TNT2 broke, so I put an
old 8mb AGP card back in, but I had similar problems with that card,
although this is the worst noise I've heard.

Could the monitor or the CRT tube have been damaged in any way?

 

[Steve Reinis]

Monitors have a high-voltage circuit and the CRT itself acts as a large
capacitor. As dust and grime builds up inside the monitor it creates
wonderful paths for high voltage to travel to where it shouldn't. This can
lead to arcing (think of lightning on a smaller scale). Could be an arc
from the ultor (the "suction cup" on the CRT) or could be from the flyback
itself. Or anywhere in-between. In any case, it's not good for the monitor
because eventually you'll zap the electronics. It the monitor is still
working, no obvious or major damage has been done ...yet... But again, you
don't want to keep running like this.

Running at different resolutions and refresh rates will cause high voltages
to be different and so this could be why you will get more "crackling" when
using a particular card. Also, changing images on the screen cause coltages
to change as well and can initiate an arc. I'm sure that if you maximize a
window with a white background and then minimize/maximize a fw
times...You'll get some arcing going on due to voltage changes. Has nothing
to do with system resources or memory issues.

If the monitor is one you like and not just some junky thing - take it to a
shop and have it serviced. Otherwise, just use it until it dies if you want
to take a chance.

-Steve