Tuesday 1 April 2014

Some commentary on monitor and TV whacking

Anytime that intermittent symptoms are experienced, I recommend gently whacking the patient to determine if mechanical shock or vibration affects the behavior. Here are a couple of responses to this suggestion.
(The following is from Marc Gelfond (71363.1700@CompuServe.COM).)
I just love the bit about "whacking it". It brings to mind an episode from the old Andy Griffith show, where a new fangled piece of electronics gear, was broght into Emmets repair shop. After many long hours of fruitless troubleshooting, out of frustration Emmet gave the thing a whack, and sure enough it fixed the problem.
As we say in the Telephony business, it "CCWT" or Came Clear While Testing. Another saying is that it "CCBFM" Came Clear By F------ Magic!!
(To which Gavin Adams (gaa@hopi.com) comments):
In the video industry we had a saying concerning malfunctioning gear:
"If it's broke, hit it with a hammer"
"If that doesn't fix it, paint it and sell it"
My DEC 16" monitor is case in point. Evey once in a while it would lose sync, and smacking it would bring it back (sometimes a few smacks). Recently it gave up the ghost completely, and after the local DEC office gave me a quote of $900 to fix it (Bermuda), I ordered a new Viewsonic 17" for the same price.
I ripped the guts out of the DEC beast, painted it with a marble finish, put plants in it, and sold it! :>

No comments:

Post a Comment