Hi, my Apple Monitor III is leaving green trails behind moving images even on the lowest and dimmest settings. Lots of slow fade on text too. I don't remember this happening when it was new but I could be wrong. Does this mean the monitor is failing? If so, what do you suggest? Are there repair services available or should I try to buy another one on Ebay? Thanks.
Anonymous
User login
Please support the defense of Ukraine.
Direct or via Unclutter App
Active forum topics
Recent content
Navigation
No Ads.
No Trackers.
No Social Media.
All Content Locally Hosted.
Built on Free Software.
We have complied with zero government requests for information.
First question: yes it starts failing
second question: there are 2 possible reasons: reason 1: failing of inside coating of the valve -> no solution possible
reason 2: leaking electrolytic capacitor in electric circuit controlling the beam and discharge of the inside coating -> repair is possible
third question: depends to your location....if you live at northpol or in deep forests of applachi mountains : no
....if you live in NJ or Ca with an "old fashioned tv-repair shop" close to your home and the guy is quite aged and has experience of a couple hundreds of old valve tv sets repaired in his lifetime - he knows the problem and can solve it.
forth question: depends to the answer of question 3 and vice versa - if that guy wants your first born child for the repair.... another monitor from ebay might be cheaper ( bearing in mind that this monitor is aged too and it might fail same way or with other fault in few months... ) - if the repair is done well and just slightly more expensive than another monitor at ebay it might be more wise to get the monitor repaired ( including degause and discharge of the monitor ) knowing that a good repair gives the monitor another 2 or 4 years of life.... instead of buying the "cat in the sack" - another monitor that might fail in few months tooo...
orientation to the term of the first born child: in the 80´s such a repair would have cost about 70 to 90 bucks....
speedyG
nowadays cost ????
Excellent reply. Now I know why when I play Sabotage the bullets leave trails. I'll look for a new monitor on eBay, but the problem is I can't get a seller to even reply to my questions. Everyone says they powered it up but can't do anything after that. What''s up with that? Are there any knowledgable sellers of old Apple products?
apple2ee,
Normally I would give the usual good sellers of Apple II products on eBay a 7 or an 8.5 on testing their items prior to selling.
Some just plug their monitors in and see if the On-Off switch works and the unit powers on.
Some actually do have an Apple unit to connect their Monitor to and test it to see if there are any problems prior to selling.
You also have to look at prices. Speedy is right in the fact that some folks not only want your First Born Child (Reference to Rumplestilskin, lol), but they also want your left leg, your credit card account and your bank information(Look at "This is Laughable thread). Sometimes you find a good deal.
Its like all other items you get on eBay...You take a chance.
Are there any environmental factors that cause a monitor fail? Leaving it plugged in? Static electricity? Smoke? Also, once they start to go, how long do they have left?
Hello apple2ee,
to make it simple: everything affects to the life of a monitor.....
- but in the main point the life of a monitor is affected to the time it was switched on in use...
probably it might help to read the basics in wikipedia about picture tube....
in basic there is a electrode at the backpart of the picture tube that ( because the electronic in the monitors loads positive electricity to it ) emits ( beams ) electrons to the front inner coating of the tube that you see as a screen. When electrons hit that coating it´s starts emiting light.... also recognized by you in front of that screen...
so the main point relevant to the life of a monitor is the coating of the electrode on the backpart of the tube... that coating consists of wolfram... when emitting electrons that removes also atomic parts from that electrode and by time passing by that coating gets thinner and thinner till no wolfram remains on the electrode and it then looses ability to beam electrons to the front... then that picture tube turns dark and will never work again....
this was the basic physical explanation.... but besides of the electrode in normal case the electronic PCB of course also is related to ageing... the solderjoints for example are exposed to corrosion.... this leads to solderjoints that might fail and thats very dependent to the area of operation.... if there is high humidity the corrsion works faster and produces earlier mistakes than in area with low humidity.....
of course dirt, dust and smoke ( thats just another kind of dirt ) cause aging....
thats also the reason that i used in my posting above the term of the "cat in a sack" ... if buying another monitor you never will really know how many hours of duty that monitor solved.... you never will know where that monitor was working before it was sold to you ( and i don´t talk about the seller but about the people that owned that monitor before him ... )
speedyG
The Monitor III came with two different screens, one with white pixels and one with green. The green pixel displays have a slow phosphor decay time and would normally have trails and the white pixel is normal (fast). The slow green phosphor was used because the Apple III could be interlaced and when interlaced the conventional phosphor would have unacceptable flicker whereas the green phosphor would provide an excellent display. If your monitor has white pixels and green trails then that is something else!
wsander, are you saying the Monitor III with the green pixels should always leave trails even when new? I have it connected to an Apple IIe. The computer and monitor are my originals from when I was a kid. I just don't remember trails. But I do remember playing with the setting to get them just right when I was young.
Couple of other questions for the green screen experts ...
What would cause a Monitor III to have stationary diagonal lines when the background green is turned up?
And, what would cause a Monitor III to have a vertical line on the left hand side where the pixels end when the background green is turned up higher than black? The line is about an inch from the left side of the screen.
At this point, I am wondering if my trails are caused by my contrast setting. I have it set to a dark black background. But when I turn the background green up, I get the left side line and then some diagonal lines. Am I making too much of this?
Hello Apple2ee,
you have not read the text at wikipedia as i mentioned above .... correct ? otherwise this question would have become obvious... the diogonal line is when the beam readjusts from the bottomline back to the first line.... in normal setup this line is invisible because the beam is switched off.... if you see it - then the beam is not switched off.... how about turning back brightness to the point where that line becomes again invisible and the beam is switched off again ?
The green phosphor Monitor III would have had trails when new. Something might have changed as components aged to make it more noticeable.
Or maybe it just seems extreme because we're used to zero-latency images now.
The Monitor /// had very noticeable trails even back in the day...
Hey SpeedyG, I'm looking at Wikipedia. Is the text I should read the Cathode ray tube article? Not sure what wiki article you are referring to. Let me know, thanks.
David__schmidt, I'm really starting to think my monitor is okay. But I would still like to back it up. I tried recently with dubious results from Ebay. You'll probably see my other post.
Hello apple2ee,
yes thats partially correct... after you have read about the basics, choose the latch "talk" above at beginning of the page and that displays :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cathode_ray_tube
that page then contains to most of your questions the requested answers....
sincerely speedyG