Monitor flickers then turns off after a minute. Apparently not a cable issue? - Hardware & Software

So my monitor is a HP w1907, and it stays on for about 30 seconds to a minute later the picture quickly fades, then goes back up, then turns off. The power is still on, the cables are all stable, and Catalyst Center still recognizes the screen, it just stops showing an image. Now here's where it gets weird: The way apparently that it fixes itself (for only a minute or thirty seconds) is using the power button to turn it off and on again. This only repeats the cycle. I'm almost positive the cables are plugged in and secure (moving around both cables yielded no results after loss of picture, and unplugging either cable makes CCC no longer recognize it). Is this a common issue? Is the monitor dying? Am I screwed?

Definitely not a common issue. How old is your monitor? Have you tried using different cables?

[QUOTE='[Dee];37987946']Definitely not a common issue. How old is your monitor? Have you tried using different cables?[/QUOTE] It's about 5-ish years old. Yes I have.

Are you completely sure NO image shows, or just the backlight goes out? Try to inspect it as hard as you can to see whether or not if the image is still there, just not the backlight, because I have a hunch, I just need this confirmed. [editline]11th October 2012[/editline] My theory is that maybe the power inverter has gone bad. "The power inverter is a power supply that takes the low voltage that runs all the logic and steps it up to around 600 to 800 volts with an even higher initial start voltage. It does that in order to run a cold cathode flourescent lamp (CCFL) that illuminates the LCD panel itself."

[QUOTE=Dacheet;37987979]It's about 5-ish years old. Yes I have.[/QUOTE] ...and have you tried the monitor on a different computer? At least this way we can find out if it's a problem with your PC or the monitor is infact dying.

Sounds like the backlight's going out to me, but it may be the power too. Take a flash light to the screen when it goes out to see if there's anything still there, or if it just turned off. Actually, it doesn't really matter unless you want to dig into the guts of your monitor to replace them. You're probably going to need a new one. [editline]14th October 2012[/editline] Fuck. bump, I'm just gonna go ahead and leave this section before I bump anything else.

[QUOTE=Del91;38034993]Sounds like the backlight's going out to me, but it may be the power too. Take a flash light to the screen when it goes out to see if there's anything still there, or if it just turned off. Actually, it doesn't really matter unless you want to dig into the guts of your monitor to replace them. You're probably going to need a new one. [editline]14th October 2012[/editline] Fuck. bump, I'm just gonna go ahead and leave this section before I bump anything else.[/QUOTE] Depending on the brand and model of the monitor, it can be worth it to fix. I recently got a 26" LCD TV from someone who said it was dead. It was a $450 TV new and I managed to fix it for only $35 in parts (inverter and switching power board.) Though it really depends on your luck in finding replacement parts. Some makes like Dell have many models that are impossible to find replacements for, or the replacements cost more than a new monitor would.