Question What's wrong with my monitor?

[KristianWindsor]

My 6 year old Dell U3818DW stopped working all of a sudden. I'm able to connect my laptop and the audio still works fine, but it can't display anything correctly (see the photos below). It's not the HDMI cable because this happens without any input – I can't read the input selection menu at all.

In these photos, the monitor is mirroring my laptop below. It looks like each column of pixels is a single color, and that color is determined by averaging all of the colors in that column? Or maybe whatever color in that column is most dominant? It’s so weird.

What happened to it? Can I fix it?

And here is a video showing what it looks like playing a pong video:

View: https://youtu.be/5b87cSDN_lY

 

[Moonstick2]

I had an old LG TFT monitor back in the pre 16:9 days that suddenly failed by displaying a lot of vertical lines; it was within warranty and LG were just 'it's dead, send it back for replacement.'

Given this monitor's six years old, it just happened suddenly and nothing you do with inputs/cables changes anything, I'd say it's most likely a terminal failure, sorry. Some kind of component died most likely. You could ask your local repair shop and see what they charge to fix it, if possible. Given it was a $1200 monitor six years ago it might be worth it, but until you get a price it's impossible to say if it's better to have it fixed, get a second hand one or buy something entirely new.

 

[KristianWindsor]

@Moonstick2 thanks for your response. I suspected that it was a goner but I'm glad to hear a second opinion. I'll try to get a quote from a local shop but it probably makes the most sense to buy a new monitor.

Is 6 years a typical lifespan for a monitor? Honestly I'm just disappointed because I bought this high-end monitor thinking it would last 10+ years.

 

[Moonstick2]

Not typical I'd say, no, but at the same time it's not exactly newsworthy short. It wasn't unreasonable to expect 10+ years but you've been unlucky, is all.