How long should a flat screen monitor last for?

Jimmy81

Hi,
I purchased a Dell Dimension system in about Nov 2003. Last week the monitor died on me i.e. there was no longer any picture on the screen. I was wondering if anyone knows the average life of a monitor?

By the way, the monitor was being used at home and was never dropped or anything like that, it was not abused in any way.

Am I wrong in assuming that just over 2 years lifespan for a monitor is a little short? I would have expected at least 5 years before anything went wrong.

Thanks in advance.

Endurance Man

LOL, i dont think these things have a maximum lifetime :v: . I have a monitor here that is going on 6years old.
Take into PcWorld or phone dell up, you should be able to get it repaired .

Smellyirishman

I assume you have tested the monitor on another PC and tested your PC with another monitor? If not, do that, or at least try re-sitting your graphics card and any connections between the PC and the monitor.

Jimmy81

I understand they dont have a max lifetime, I just thought that it would last a bit longer than 2 years. I already rang dell up, I was told that the warranty lasts for 1 year and id need to get a replacement.....very helpful!

Jimmy81

Smellyirishman wrote:

I assume you have tested the monitor on another PC and tested your PC with another monitor? If not, do that, or at least try re-sitting your graphics card and any connections between the PC and the monitor.

I have tried it on another pc, it still didnt work unfortunately.

Endurance Man

Jimmy81 wrote:

I have tried it on another pc, it still didnt work unfortunately.

Most will last years and years, some will break after 1/2 years, its just luck of the draw really. You could try get it repaired.

Laguna

Well in the manuals supplied when you buy an LCD monitor, it usually states how many hours of life you'll get, for example my recently purchased 19" Acer states it has an expected life of 20,000 hours.. I would imagine most LCD's would be of similar lifespan.

Jimmy81

Endurance Man wrote:

Most will last years and years, some will break after 1/2 years, its just luck of the draw really. You could try get it repaired.

Ive bought a replacement screen already. But Im planning on making a complaint to dell. I was just checking if 2 years was normal for a monitor.

Jimmy81

Thanks for that Laguna, Ill check that out....now where did u put those manuals ?:)

hobie

I was told that the warranty lasts for 1 year

I keep pushing the advantages of buying the 3 year Dell warranty .... it costs damm all (about 130.00 euros extra for the 3 years) and all you need is one significant problem and it pays for its self in one go .....

Laguna

hobie wrote:

I keep pushing the advantages of buying the 3 year Dell warranty .... it costs damm all (about 130.00 euros extra for the 3 years) and all you need is one significant problem and it pays for its self in one go .....

I keep pushing for people to stop buying Dell full stop, for the price you pay, they use inferior components.

hobie

I keep pushing for people to stop buying Dell full stop, for the price you pay, they use inferior components

now now .... we are talking about the guys who "do buy Dell" and ignore extended warranty protection that costs very little ..... not about guys who simply "do not want to buy Dell" .....

TerrorFirmer

Laguna wrote:

I keep pushing for people to stop buying Dell full stop, for the price you pay, they use inferior components.

Lucky for Dell then, the home and business world can't get enough of their rapidly increasing inferiority.

Laguna

MobileInfantry wrote:

Lucky for Dell then, the home and business world can't get enough of their rapidly increasing inferiority.

Sarcasm, the first and last resort of many a board user. Ah, I see your point, Dell sells well as they cater to non technical people who wish to own a PC for little Johnny or to get a few ole' PC's into the office, that's how one measures quality in the PC market, how many PC's a company can sell.

hobie

Some guys can't stand Ryanair ..... in fact I would go as far as to say they harbour deep resentment that such an Airline even exists .... and yet 33,000,000 (thirty three million) guys and gals que up every year to jump un board and fly away ..... :eek:

Dell employ 4,500 peeps in Ireland ..... I seem to rem their annual sales are in the 40,000.000 us dollars (fourty thousand million) a year ..... a heck of a lot of it out of Ireland ....

These guys are definetly doing something wrong ..... or maybe they are not ....

RangeR

Going well off-topic, DELL's succss is down to their brilliant marketing. However, I do not like Dell, would not buy Dell and would not recommend Dell. Apart from other things, their after sales support is almost 0 (zero)

Back on Topic, 2 years is way too short a lif span for a flat monitor used as a normal residential product. But you will get no satisfaction from Dell. They only offer 1 year. No amount of complaining will get them to help you. You are not the first.

Gurgle

Jimmy81 wrote:

Am I wrong in assuming that just over 2 years lifespan for a monitor is a little short?

Nope, thats pretty short.
But its not ridiculously short.
If the whole thing is just dead as a doornail, its probably something in the transformer / power circuit. Should be econonically fixable.

nl

My Dell 17 inch packed it in after 18 months. Did'nt go completly dead though. It shows rectangular boxes and vertical and horizontal lines. But thats it.

hobie

Apart from other things, their after sales support is almost 0 (zero)

well my dear old Dell of 6 years vintage popped a hard disc at two years of age ......... immediately my 3 year warranty swung into action .....

Dell sent a Packaging kit out by Courier ...... collected the machine a couple of days later ....

dropped it back to me a week later by Courier with a nice new (and larger) disc ..... :rolleyes:

and all this cost me .....

Nothing !!!

Ardent

I know how much of a p1sser it is have an LCD fail, especially when you shell out good bucks or them.

My BenQ 19" is beginning to fail on me after 1 year. Loss of colour and horizontal lines appear in a small area after a few hours of use and get progressively noticable the longer the monitor is on. It's not enough to prevent me from using the monitor, you only notice it against certain coloured backgrounds, but I wanted to replace the monitor anyway. I worried because, although BenQ cover their monitors free for 3 years, only the 1st year is eligible for an on-site swap and I didn't to be without a monitor for a couple of weeks.

I ended up ringing BenQ in the UK today, 1 year and 2 days after buying the monitor from www.jes.de. They took the serial number and just asked when and where I bought it, I said about a year ago, and that was good enough for them. They are arranging for an on-site swap in a couple of days.

That's customer service. I would recommend anyone to buy BenQ for the 3 year warranties they provide.

leeroybrown

Jimmy81 wrote:

Ive bought a replacement screen already. But Im planning on making a complaint to dell. I was just checking if 2 years was normal for a monitor.

Two years is well below average. A certain percentage of units will fail under warranty, a bit more will fail early and the majority will fail after a good long service. Complaining will do no good and won't get you anywhere. You bought a monitor with a 12 month warranty and ended up being one of the unlucky ones.

dbnavan

Should have taken the warrenty, in 3 years I have had a dell all that went was mouse and cd rom both changed with Warrenty, Cd-rom, was my own fault, less said the better

I fix pcs from home, for last 5 years, all the time and I think only once had someone contact me about a Dell

hobie

Just checked the warranty cost on a typical Dell home pc ....

Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 630 3.00GHz 17" flat screen etc

The difference in cost between 12 months and a 3 year warranty is 145.00 euro's or a 1/4 pint per week :eek:

Gurgle

hobie wrote:

and all this cost me .....

Nothing !!!

No, that cost you at least €145, for a hard disk worth what, €60 ?

Which isn't bad really, for the hardware illiterate but its not value for someone whos able to install a new one themselves, or knows someone who can.

hobie

No, that cost you at least €145, for a hard disk worth what, €60 ?

Which isn't bad really, for the hardware illiterate

There are lots of guys and gals in the World out here who have no ambition what-so-ever to open up a Pc let alone start popping bits and pieces into it to try and fix it :rolleyes: .... all they want is the reassurance that if something goes wrong a nice man/woman will come round and either fix it or take away and repair it ... and all for the price of a 1/4 pint a week

Of course, in the situation we are discussing i.e. a flat screen goes down, ones expertise is highly likely to get you nowhere .... and without warranty cover you face an extremely high replacement charge :mad:

I'll sacrifice the 1/4 pint a week for the 3 year warranty cover anytime .... some may miss the 1/4 pint a week deeply, but its ok with me .....

Gurgle

hobie wrote:

Of course, in the situation we are discussing i.e. a flat screen goes down, ones expertise is highly likely to get you nowhere .... and without warranty cover you face an extremely high replacement charge :mad:

I'll sacrifice the 1/4 pint a week for the 3 year warranty cover anytime .... some may miss the 1/4 pint a week deeply, but its ok with me .....

I take the opposing view - What am I paying €145 for ?
The odds on a component needing replacing within 3 years - roughly 10%
The odds on it being a component thats still worth €145 - roughly 1%
(i.e. the monitor)

I'm happy enough to gamble at those odds but, as I said, for the illiterate its not a bad deal.

hobie

The odds on a component needing replacing within 3 years - roughly 10%
The odds on it being a component thats still worth €145 - roughly 1%

for the illiterate its not a bad deal

this is really good news for "the illiterate" members of the forum ...

In fact it's such good news I'm amazed all PC manufacturers do not offer a three year warranty for free :rolleyes: .... the financial risks for them must clearly be minimal ....

astrofool

if you know how the likes of dixons/pcword/argos works, then you will ACTUALLY know that the financial risks are minimal, its their biggest money spinner, and is why they always try to get people to sign up to it.

Snowbat

hobie wrote:

In fact it's such good news I'm amazed all PC manufacturers do not offer a three year warranty for free :rolleyes:

Dell used to, back in the days when they had a name for reliabile products.
http://www.itworld.com/Comp/1205/IDG010718dellwarranties/

hobie

We did extensive research and most of our customers told us that they didn't need a three-year warranty. Those who did want it were very willing to pay extra. We will be able to lower our prices as there definitely is a cost for those two extra years,"

The above quote from Dell (in the link provided) certainly supports views above that lengthy warranty periods are simply not wanted by many ....:rolleyes:

As for me, I stick with the '1/3 pint cost per week' of 3 years cover :rolleyes: .... loosing a flat screen at say a year or even two scares me

Looking through a bang-up-to-date 'Desk top reliabilty' study I note Dell come out on average with all the top manufacturers, which I suppose is reasonable for a mass manufacturer .... one area that was critized was more and more use of 'thick accent' call centres ... a difficult one that .... maybe we just need to get used to it ....

K.O.Kiki

I'm just wondering -- do LCD TVs have the same x0,000hrs rating? My dad just bought a 37", wouldn't want that to go pop in a 2 yrs time...

jimmycrackcorm

The most common problem with lcd screens, and you'll find it particulary if you search for laptop problems, is that the cathode bulb that lights the screen dies. Hey - its a bulb!

From what I've read it seems that it is essentially an inexpensive and simple repair job but not for tha faint hearted.