My monitor burnt out yesterday, it had been flickering and spiking the
last couple of weeks, then the horizontal image part went wrong and
there was a bad smell of burning, which meant I had to open all the
windows, I don't suppose it's economic to get it fixed. It is a 19"
Hansol 920D, bought 15th Feb 2002, well out of warrenty now, and bought
through Multivision, who have since gone out of business.

However, I was looking for a 19" Flat screen monitor (new), without
spending megabucks what should I be looking for in the spec?
Any links would be great. I was tentitively looking at this one from
ebuyer...

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=88920

But thought I'd ask for some advice before biting the bullet.

Many thanks
--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net

Keith (Southend) wrote:
My monitor burnt out yesterday, it had been flickering and spiking the
last couple of weeks, then the horizontal image part went wrong and
there was a bad smell of burning, which meant I had to open all the
windows, I don't suppose it's economic to get it fixed. It is a 19"
Hansol 920D, bought 15th Feb 2002, well out of warrenty now, and bought
through Multivision, who have since gone out of business.

However, I was looking for a 19" Flat screen monitor (new), without
spending megabucks what should I be looking for in the spec?
Any links would be great. I was tentitively looking at this one from
ebuyer...

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=88920


But thought I'd ask for some advice before biting the bullet.

Many thanks
Try Evesham, for £449 you can get a 23" TV flat screen, HD ready and
serves very well as a PC Monitor. A bit pricey for a PC monitor but a
super piece of kit especially if you like Watching DVDs etc on your PC.
Alan

Yep we've got an Acer 1913 (bought for £150 inc VAT in fact but that
was on promotion from OfficeWorld a few months back and I haven't seen
any at this low price recently). Works perfectly well, silver surround
is slightly gaudy but for £150 I wasn't complaining. There's no DVI
interface, which isn't uncommon on cheaper LCD screens. (DVI is
recommended for maximum image sharpness (but you obviously have to
have a PC / graphics card with a DVI socket) but in practice nowadays
non-DVI is pretty good.)

19" LCD screens up to around £200 are much of a muchness provided you
go for a recognisable brand and unless you have some specific
application in mind like gaming, expert photo processing or needing
several people to see the image together. Quality and features (eg how
adjustable is the screen for height) are obviously not as good as
you'd get in the £300 price range but perfectly good for routine use.
You could look at some recent PC mags (or their websites) for their
'A' lists. Samsung 913N gets some reasonable reviews and there are a
lot of other inexpensive Acer models around 1911/1912/1915/1916 with
only minor variations.

Ebuyer isn't without its problems. I've bought several items from them
with no hassles but by all accounts their aftersales service isn't
brilliant if you do have a problem. Check out some local stores like
Staples and even (perish the thought) PC World which, despite its
expensive reputation, does occasionally have bargains if you choose
carefully. Personally I'd be tempted to wait for the Jan sales.

JGD

Keith (Southend) wrote:
My monitor burnt out yesterday, it had been flickering and spiking the
last couple of weeks, then the horizontal image part went wrong and
there was a bad smell of burning, which meant I had to open all the
windows, I don't suppose it's economic to get it fixed. It is a 19"
Hansol 920D, bought 15th Feb 2002, well out of warrenty now, and bought
through Multivision, who have since gone out of business.

However, I was looking for a 19" Flat screen monitor (new), without
spending megabucks what should I be looking for in the spec?
Any links would be great. I was tentitively looking at this one from
ebuyer...

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=88920


But thought I'd ask for some advice before biting the bullet.

Many thanks

That's the one I've got. I don't play many games on it but it seems to
work well with dvds and has good colour rendition Keith.

Les

--
Les Crossan,
Wallsend, Tyne & Wear
54.95N 1.5W
Home of the Wallsend StormCam and the Backup USW FAQ -
www.uksevereweather.org.uk

John Dann wrote:
Yep we've got an Acer 1913 (bought for £150 inc VAT in fact but that
was on promotion from OfficeWorld a few months back and I haven't seen
any at this low price recently). Works perfectly well, silver surround
is slightly gaudy but for £150 I wasn't complaining. There's no DVI
interface, which isn't uncommon on cheaper LCD screens. (DVI is
recommended for maximum image sharpness (but you obviously have to
have a PC / graphics card with a DVI socket) but in practice nowadays
non-DVI is pretty good.)

19" LCD screens up to around £200 are much of a muchness provided you
go for a recognisable brand and unless you have some specific
application in mind like gaming, expert photo processing or needing
several people to see the image together. Quality and features (eg how
adjustable is the screen for height) are obviously not as good as
you'd get in the £300 price range but perfectly good for routine use.
You could look at some recent PC mags (or their websites) for their
'A' lists. Samsung 913N gets some reasonable reviews and there are a
lot of other inexpensive Acer models around 1911/1912/1915/1916 with
only minor variations.

Ebuyer isn't without its problems. I've bought several items from them
with no hassles but by all accounts their aftersales service isn't
brilliant if you do have a problem. Check out some local stores like
Staples and even (perish the thought) PC World which, despite its
expensive reputation, does occasionally have bargains if you choose
carefully. Personally I'd be tempted to wait for the Jan sales.

JGD

Thanks John, the January sales maybe worth waiting for. I'm not stuck as
my brother has lent me an old monitor which still works.
I was just looking at the Acer's
http://www.acer.co.uk/acereuro/page4...crc=4231259794
AL1951a's, which talk about the DVI., as what ever I buy hopefully
should last a number of years it maybe worth thinking about some of
these latest technologies, hence the posting.
snip
The Digital (DVI) interface complements the latest graphic cards of
today’s PC equipment for optimisation of your imaging quality and true
performance.
snip

Many thanks
--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net

"Keith (Southend)" wrote in message
...
My monitor burnt out yesterday, it had been flickering and spiking the
last couple of weeks, then the horizontal image part went wrong and there
was a bad smell of burning, which meant I had to open all the windows, I
don't suppose it's economic to get it fixed. It is a 19" Hansol 920D,
bought 15th Feb 2002, well out of warrenty now, and bought through
Multivision, who have since gone out of business.

However, I was looking for a 19" Flat screen monitor (new), without
spending megabucks what should I be looking for in the spec?
Any links would be great. I was tentitively looking at this one from
ebuyer...

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=88920

But thought I'd ask for some advice before biting the bullet.

Many thanks
--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net

The thing I haven't seen mentioned is whether you want a pure monitor which
basically means your pc via it's vga output or HDMI/DVI output. This is
dependent on your graphics card. HDMI/DVI is the signal kept as digital all
the way trough from PC to monitor. This result will give a much better
quality image, even so RGB via the vga lead is pretty good. Another thing
you need to know is can your Graphics card match the native resolution of
the new monitor when you get it.

For example if you want to go the route of high definition the resolution of
the screen needs to be something like 1024x768/720 at least, and then your
graphics card needs to be able to scale that resolution. You can find out by
going into control - display -settings.

Here you'll find a slider bar which can (not always) reveal the scaling
range i.e 800x600, 1024 x 768. If not there are further settings in the
advanced tab. Again depending on your graphics card (usually ATI or Nvidia)
there should be a tab saying adapters and here there should be listed many
resolutions. Be warned though some screens if the incorrect resolution is
chosen won't show anything at all which is a pain because how can you see to
undo what you've done? Well XP should offer you when you've changed
resolutions a choice to accept the new settings if you don't it should
revert back to the original resolution enabling you to see XP desktop again.

The last thing Keith is whether you want to watch TV on the LCD display as
well. Many now come with built in digital free view tuners but they are
still dependent on a good aerial signal. next year High Definition is being
pumped out by sky and it does look very tasty.

So you should be considering making a New Years Resolution. Something like
1024 x 780 minimum

On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 13:18:32 +0000 (UTC), "Lawrence Jenkins"
wrote:

big snip

I think there's a bit of confusion creeping in here between PC screens
used simply as an output device for the PC software and a screen that
might also be used as a TV. They're rather different animals (though
you can easily use a PC monitor to display DVD playback, but that's
not strictly TV use.)

Most 19" LCD/TFT PC monitors that you're likely to find readily
available will have a native resolution of 1280x1024 and are best used
at that resolution. Sure, they can be set to lower resolution but the
image doesn't rescale as neatly as on old CRT screens and the results
are usually perceptibly worse. And ICBW but I don't recall seeing any
19" PC monitors yet with an HDMI interface (ie capable of carrying the
audio component of the TV signal as well as DVI). But providing you
handle the audio separately then a monitor with DVI input should be
able to handle the video from a TV tuner box with a suitable cable.

But once you start looking at a screen whose main or major secondary
purpose might be as a TV, especially if your interested in the
so-called High Definition TV (which is actually fairly low resolution
by PC standards though impressive for watching moving pictures
compared to what we're used to with regular TV), then there are a host
of other issues to consider, which will really be going seriously OT
to get into here.

So I guess the question for Keith is whether he wants a screen
primarily for use with a PC or one with good TV capability also.

JGD

"John Dann" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 13:18:32 +0000 (UTC), "Lawrence Jenkins"
wrote:

big snip

I think there's a bit of confusion creeping in here between PC screens
used simply as an output device for the PC software and a screen that
might also be used as a TV. They're rather different animals (though
you can easily use a PC monitor to display DVD playback, but that's
not strictly TV use.)

Most 19" LCD/TFT PC monitors that you're likely to find readily
available will have a native resolution of 1280x1024 and are best used
at that resolution. Sure, they can be set to lower resolution but the
image doesn't rescale as neatly as on old CRT screens and the results
are usually perceptibly worse. And ICBW but I don't recall seeing any
19" PC monitors yet with an HDMI interface (ie capable of carrying the
audio component of the TV signal as well as DVI). But providing you
handle the audio separately then a monitor with DVI input should be
able to handle the video from a TV tuner box with a suitable cable.

But once you start looking at a screen whose main or major secondary
purpose might be as a TV, especially if your interested in the
so-called High Definition TV (which is actually fairly low resolution
by PC standards though impressive for watching moving pictures
compared to what we're used to with regular TV), then there are a host
of other issues to consider, which will really be going seriously OT
to get into here.

So I guess the question for Keith is whether he wants a screen
primarily for use with a PC or one with good TV capability also.

JGD


"Most 19" LCD/TFT PC monitors that you're likely to find readily
available will have a native resolution of 1280x1024 and are best used
at that resolution. Sure, they can be set to lower resolution but the
image doesn't rescale as neatly as on old CRT screens and the results "


Good point Dan. PC's though make great scalers for DVD's and say sky rgb
into a quality capture card.

I'm not too sure what graphics card Keith is using.

Lawrence Jenkins wrote:
"John Dann" wrote in message

"Most 19" LCD/TFT PC monitors that you're likely to find readily

available will have a native resolution of 1280x1024 and are best used
at that resolution. Sure, they can be set to lower resolution but the
image doesn't rescale as neatly as on old CRT screens and the results "



Good point Dan. PC's though make great scalers for DVD's and say sky rgb
into a quality capture card.

I'm not too sure what graphics card Keith is using.


Ok, this has all been very useful reading and I thank you all for that.
I am also reasured that I have just recently bought a graphics card with
PCI to replace an old one I recycled.

However...

1. For some time I have had some niggling problems with my PC (Blue
screen ~ reboot occasionally), some windows programmes crashing for no
apparent reason etc. The 'event log' points to Hard Drive / IDE cabling
problem, allthough these can be red herring messages, but the problem
maybe one of the following...
..
1. Windows XP installation maybe currupt, even though I had reinstalled.
2. Hard disk maybe failing , saving in excel forinstance seems slower
than it used to be.
3. Memory - I did a 'Memtest86' and this found no problems.
4. Power supply, the voltages appear ok + I now am plugged in via a
'Trust' UPS.
5. Graphics Card - when I build this PC back in March I used the old
Graphics Card I had.
6. DVD + CD-RW to IDE

Now my thoughts a
a). To plug the the hard discs into IDE2, incase there is a bad
connection in some of the MoBo circuit from IDE1.
b). New Hard Disc. or
c). New SATA Hard Disc, as this uses a different circuit, the "ABIT
Fatal1ty AN8" MoBo has all the interfaces and drivers. Drivers maybe the
cause of the problem allthough I can find no conflicts. I assume you can
have both SATA and ATA discs?
d). Graphics Card.

Now the reason I mention this, as the monitor is just an additional
problem to add to the list, is I have just got, not yet installed, a
standard PCI Express Graphics card to replace the old one "ASUS Extreme
N6200TC", which happens to have both TV Out and DVI, so it looks like I
can take advantage of the digital output onto a digital monitor (DVI).
It's also an nVidia item, which the Abit MoBo runs as well. As far as
the TV bit is concerned, it's not something I'm bothered about, I have
Satellite TV and a DVD player in the other room, I can fall asleep on
the Sofa with that, it's not what I use the PC for, I'm not a gamer
either, I have a big enough game with the weather which takes up far to
much of my time grin

So it looks like that Acer monitor would be the sort of spec that suits
my needs.

AL1951As - 19"
http://www.acer.co.uk/acereuro/page4...crc=4231259794

I take it these are less thirsty powerwise than the old monitors?

Well, I think I'm getting my head round all this now.

Many thanks
--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net

"Keith (Southend)" wrote in message
...
Lawrence Jenkins wrote:
"John Dann" wrote in message

"Most 19" LCD/TFT PC monitors that you're likely to find readily

available will have a native resolution of 1280x1024 and are best used
at that resolution. Sure, they can be set to lower resolution but the
image doesn't rescale as neatly as on old CRT screens and the results "



Good point Dan. PC's though make great scalers for DVD's and say sky rgb
into a quality capture card.

I'm not too sure what graphics card Keith is using.
Ok, this has all been very useful reading and I thank you all for that. I
am also reasured that I have just recently bought a graphics card with PCI
to replace an old one I recycled.

However...

1. For some time I have had some niggling problems with my PC (Blue
screen ~ reboot occasionally), some windows programmes crashing for no
apparent reason etc. The 'event log' points to Hard Drive / IDE cabling
problem, allthough these can be red herring messages, but the problem
maybe one of the following...
.
1. Windows XP installation maybe currupt, even though I had reinstalled.
2. Hard disk maybe failing , saving in excel forinstance seems slower than
it used to be.
3. Memory - I did a 'Memtest86' and this found no problems.
4. Power supply, the voltages appear ok + I now am plugged in via a
'Trust' UPS.
5. Graphics Card - when I build this PC back in March I used the old
Graphics Card I had.
6. DVD + CD-RW to IDE

Now my thoughts a
a). To plug the the hard discs into IDE2, incase there is a bad connection
in some of the MoBo circuit from IDE1.
b). New Hard Disc. or
c). New SATA Hard Disc, as this uses a different circuit, the "ABIT
Fatal1ty AN8" MoBo has all the interfaces and drivers. Drivers maybe the
cause of the problem allthough I can find no conflicts. I assume you can
have both SATA and ATA discs?
d). Graphics Card.

Now the reason I mention this, as the monitor is just an additional
problem to add to the list, is I have just got, not yet installed, a
standard PCI Express Graphics card to replace the old one "ASUS Extreme
N6200TC", which happens to have both TV Out and DVI, so it looks like I
can take advantage of the digital output onto a digital monitor (DVI).
It's also an nVidia item, which the Abit MoBo runs as well. As far as the
TV bit is concerned, it's not something I'm bothered about, I have
Satellite TV and a DVD player in the other room, I can fall asleep on the
Sofa with that, it's not what I use the PC for, I'm not a gamer either, I
have a big enough game with the weather which takes up far to much of my
time grin

So it looks like that Acer monitor would be the sort of spec that suits my
needs.

AL1951As - 19"
http://www.acer.co.uk/acereuro/page4...crc=4231259794

I take it these are less thirsty powerwise than the old monitors?

Well, I think I'm getting my head round all this now.

Many thanks
--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net

Sorry Keith I know this may sound daft but you may need a complete reinstall
of XP.
I had problems with my pc just over a year ago. It was a propriety line job
from PC world the Advent range problem is/was I could only use it the twelve
days before christmas ;-) No joking to one side it was pretty well spec'd
for it's day AMD3000xp XP home pack software . It did however get trojaned
or wormed or both. In the end a freind of mine who runs a small PC business
suggested a total reinstall.

Surely though with the PCI express graphics card you must have reinstralled
XP?