Why does my monitor pop?

[glengels]

I bought a used 21" CRT monitor (Nokia 445Xpro) about 4 years ago. For as long as I have owned it, about once every couple days it makes a medium-loud popping noise. This just occurs at random. FYI, I do not use a screen saver or place my monitor into any kind of standby or power save mode. I just turn it on and off via the power switch, but the popping noise occurs when the monitor has been on for awhile.

For about the last month the popping has gotten more frequent. The whole screen also blacks out and then gets really large for a second, then shrinks back to normal size. (I.e. it looks like an enlargement, and the borders of the screen cannot be seen. Then very quickly it returns to normal.) The screen effects may have happened before to some extent when it popped, but has gotten more noticeable recently.

Tonight the monitor popped three times in a row. It's never done that before.

I can take a wild guess that it needs some type of repair. What I want to know is, does anyone have an idea specifically of what is wrong and a ballpark figure of how much it may cost to repair? If it is expensive then I may just opt to buy a new, flat screen monitor instead of getting this fixed.

Thanks!

[PrntRhd]

Noises like the ones you describe are usually due to a couple of serious issues:
1) Discharge of high voltage at the fly back transformer.
2) Power supply going bad.

NEITHER of these is a user serviceable item, you can be killed by the energy contained in these areas. You would want a TV repair shop/monitor repair service to fix it, someone who knows how to work with the risks involved in tube type displays.
Based on the age of the monitor, a flat screen purchase and retirement of the old CRT would be my best advice.

[rdeckert]

My monitor started doing the same damn thing a couple years ago and it just went out a couple months ago. His first opinion about the discharge in voltage is most likely to be the problem. And if that's correct, get ready to buy a new monitor. You may as well just wear the thing out till it's done.

[glengels]

Thanks to both of you for the insight. PrntRhd, I wasn't planning to fix this myself (just wanted a sanity check on getting a repair vs buying another one) but thanks anyway for the warning.

[PrntRhd]

PrntRhd, I wasn't planning to fix this myself
I figured you wouldn't, just wanted to make certain visitors of the forums would not try it and get shocked/dead, that would be very bad. :eek:

[Whyzman]

glengels, what part of the world do you live in? You might want to have a look on the internet and see if there are any lease-back resellers in your area. I've been able to pick up used 21" monitors dirt cheap sans shipping because one such company is located in the Minneapolis area...

[glengels]

Whyzman - Yes, there are places in my area to buy used monitors, and that is what I'm going to do. I was originally planning to use this opportunity to buy a new LCD monitor. But after doing some research, I'd rather get another used CRT. For one thing of course they are cheaper. I can pick up a used 21" CRT for $70, while a 20" LCD is about $200. But also, I like the resolution of the CRTs better. I keep my screen size set to 1024x768. 20" LCDs typically come with 1680x1050 native resolution. I know that gamers like as much resolution as they can get, but I prefer a smaller pixel resolution so that things look bigger on the screen. I didn't realize until recently that because LCDs have a native resolution, you can't set the resolution size smaller (without either only taking up part of the screen, resulting in a smaller picture, or else having the picture look bad if you try to display at non-native resolution).

In conclusion, between the lower price and the greater flexibility of having a lower resolution, I'm sticking with a CRT.