If I might ask, how are the LEDs inferior?  I don't think I have ever had an LED backlit monitor actually, except in mobile devices of course.  But I have used them and I don't see what is wrong with them.  Also since you can fix LCDs, its it possible to save this monitor?  (Acer AL2216W)  I love these monitors, I have 2, one I got from my Dad (because he didn't like the red line, I put up with it for over 2 years) and then another (flawless) at a yardsale for $5.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4vHkHv02IljaVAtQXJ3TFhSb2s/view?usp=sharing

The red line just showed up one day and stayed, off and on for 2 years it would have a cyan line show up and go away, and then sadly the monitor fell over on my keyboard and the green line showed up...and stayed.  I personally don't think there is a way to fix it, but thought I would ask, just for laughs.  (It sits being used for another PC now, no longer my main one.)

If I might ask, how are the LEDs inferior?  I don't think I have ever had an LED backlit monitor actually, except in mobile devices of course.  But I have used them and I don't see what is wrong with them.

I would agree. My main laptop has an LED-backlit display, and as far as I'm concerned they're vastly superior to CCFL backlights. Better battery life, no inverter to burn out or lamp to wear out (although that is rare), wider range of brightness, and no warm-up time.

The line is caused by a broken connection. Most commonly it happens at the flat polyimide (transparent red material) cable strips that connect the actual LCD matrix (glass pane) to a circuit board strip that is located on the back of the panel, along the top, sometimes under a cover or transparent plastic. Less common is inside the glass pane, near the edge where something was stressed during manufacture or if the monitor was bumped

The cable is attached by adhesion to a contact strip on the panel and on the circuit board. It can happen that in some contact point the adhesion was not done very well

If the problem is at the cable, sometimes it will get back to work if you play with it a bit. By play i mean with the monitor on, move a finger across those cables and the exposed contact strip (the one on the PCB side), push but very lightly. If you find a spot where you touch and it goes working normal, stuff there a piece of paper....

But beware - its very sensitive. Touch it wrong and youll add more dead lines



Fluorescents (and CCFLs) have multiple emission peaks and bands through the visible spectrum - few from mercury and one or more from phosphors. Some phosphor compositions give more diverse color compositions than others, but in all of them, there are no too extreme single peaks, especially at the high energy (blue) end of the spectrum. LED have one extremely high peak at the blue band of the LED chips, one other wide band from the phosphor, and thats it

The light may appear white and even get some fairly high CRI, but the set of colors mixed into this white is emptier than with fluorescent. This is noticable in general area lighting where the lamp is used to light everything of any color, and not only RGB subpixels of set colors in a display though

Some studies say that the narrow high peak in the blue can be harmfull to the eyes. From there researches split up, some claim its bad and some claim its not. I have no further "scientific" data on the matter either

What i know for myself is : Our body gives us warning signs when something is not right. If LED lighting in general causes me more eye strain than Fluorescent lighting - and i compare to 6500K Daylight fluorescent - i will stay clear of LED where i get to choose the lighting. HPS has even more extreme peak in the yellow-orange, but i never had any strain issues with HPS - and i use it a lot as a work light when i work on stuff outside - so it must indeed do somethng with the blue peak

It looks fair to me to extend that consideraion as well to the backlight of a device i stare at for hours from close distance



Other considerations come down to the same debate as in general lighting

Will i trade the better light quality of Fluorescent to save some energy (at least in AC powered desktop monitor, not a laptop) ? To not have to replace EOL lamps and failed electronic ballasts ? To have instant on at full brightness ? No, i won't. I want good light, i will handle the required maintenance work

Besides, specifically to soome points you raised :

Dead inverters : It is VERY rare with LED backlights, but i seen it happen. Now, in the CCFL case, the inverter is a replaceable part (as in laptops), or is assembled of fairly large components on the PCB, normally sharing PCB with the power supply (as in most desktop monitors), so repairable with some moderate soldering work. In the LED case, the driver is embedded in the panel's video board (that one along the top edge) - If it dies, it cannot be replaced

EOL lamps : CCFLs can last very long. The latest few LCD's i got are IBM ThinkVisions that lasted for 10 years. Only now they started failing (few are indeed CCFLs, others are bad capacitors, and a few were RDed by a surge, and would be still working otherwise). 10 years is okay lifetime for a lamp. In 10 years anything can happen to LEDs too - we are not there in time yet, but i can imagine a boss in a company refusing to replace monitors that "still work fine", while the LEDs in them are so color shifted that they harm the worker's health

Warm up time : A monitor that takes abnormally long to warm up is a probable sign that the CCFLs are near EOL. Replace them now and get it back to good shape. And prevent them from wiping out the inverter when they do EOL

I had a crappy computer that ran windows 98 second edition from like 1996. I couldn't find the other driver disc, otherwise I'd be using it to browse L-G. 

Can search for the driver by the name of the chip in the device in question. Say you have a network card by a manufacturer that neither you nor Google never heard about, but the chip on it is a RTL8139D, then you can find the driver for RTL8139D and it will work fine

RTL8139D

One of the best network cards ever made, in my opinion. 100 Mbit, and yet compatible with MS-DOS and every version of Microsoft Windows. And Realtek's made a trillion of them, so you can get one for pocket change on eBay.

Those are great cards and very cheap. I have stocks of them

I have also some 8129 PCI with BNC port, few various ISA cards (non Realtek) with BNC port, and some ethernet switches that have 8 or 16 RJ45 ports + BNC port

This thing is cool, you can connect multiple computers with just 1 stretch of cable and T connectors. I experimented with it a bit, tho i dont have the proper cable so i hack in TV coax (it is 75 ohm but the effect of this mismatch is not too bad)

8129 sounds like a nice card. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a single one on eBay. I would like to try networking a few of my vintage computers via coax, someday.

I have a bunch of EtherPCI cards (don't remember what chipset).  One pair came in a network kit that included two cards and a 10Mbps hub.  Those cards only have the RJ45 port.  I have 3 or 4 others that have both RJ45 and BNC.  I had wanted to try building a thinnet network at one point in time.

Icefog, maybe you already saw it, but I sent you a message the other day.

I have several PCI cards for Ethernet. I also had some for audio and serial at one time but those may have gone to habitat. I have a newer wifi card for my granny's old pc but I couldn't get the driver to work with the computer.

Some old CPUs I salvaged.

I salvaged a PSU from my moms work and I fixed it. The problem was something in the diodes. You might say the problem has been...😎... Bridge rectified!

HEH

Input rectifiers ? That would be most often result of a line voltage surge

Most PSU's (and most other hardware too) is bad electrolitic capacitors

Well you never know about the Chinese garbage people use in their homes on a daily basis.