Help! Should my monitor smell like it is burning?

[hop-frog]

I recently purchased a KDS XF-7b monitor. I've had it running for the past two days, not more than 6 hours straight. The entire room and now the house smells like something is burning.

I'm running the monitor at 1028x768 @ 85 hz as recommended, but I read that it can handle several sizes larger. My installation of SuSE did not recognize this particular make of KDS and I could not find drivers for it online so I went with the default VESA monitor installation that SaX2 is giving me. Is this bad?

Despite being advertised as an "Xtreme Flat" screen monitor the monitor has a concave appearance now, where everything seems to be smaller in the center and the edges of the desktop are all wavy. It is so wavy that the KDE start menu even changes directions twice! The pixels are much larger on the edge of the screen. Changing the horizontal size did not solve this. Dispite all of the fancy controls this monitor has I'm having great difficulty in straightening all of these ripples out that came in the factory setting.

On top of that I am suffering from a really bad case of eye strain, something I didn't get very much with my older monitor that had color, low refresh rate, and ghosting problems. I've been playing with the contrast and brightness and enlarging the fonts to compensate.

I'm about ready to take my $118 monitor back to Wallmart. Can I expect better from a monitor of equal price?

EDIT: It also makes a loud double-click noise whenever X starts, stops, or is refreshed. Is this normal?

[bosox79]

Originally posted by hop-frog
I recently purchased a KDS XF-7b monitor. I've had it running for the past two days, not more than 6 hours straight. The entire room and now the house smells like something is burning.

I'm running the monitor at 1028x768 @ 85 hz as recommended, but I read that it can handle several sizes larger. My installation of SuSE did not recognize this particular make of KDS and I could not find drivers for it online so I went with the default VESA monitor installation that SaX2 is giving me. Is this bad?

Despite being advertised as an "Xtreme Flat" screen monitor the monitor has a concave appearance now, where everything seems to be smaller in the center and the edges of the desktop are all wavy. It is so wavy that the KDE start menu even changes directions twice! The pixels are much larger on the edge of the screen. Changing the horizontal size did not solve this. Dispite all of the fancy controls this monitor has I'm having great difficulty in straightening all of these ripples out that came in the factory setting.

On top of that I am suffering from a really bad case of eye strain, something I didn't get very much with my older monitor that had color, low refresh rate, and ghosting problems. I've been playing with the contrast and brightness and enlarging the fonts to compensate.

I'm about ready to take my $118 monitor back to Wallmart. Can I expect better from a monitor of equal price?

EDIT: It also makes a loud double-click noise whenever X starts, stops, or is refreshed. Is this normal?

is the burning smell strongest in the room where the computer is? to be safe I would unplug the monitor from your box be sure to kill the power of the box & the monitor first.

as far as the video issues go I would guess they are related to the burning smell monitors are nothing to mess with. I would first contact the monitor manufacturer and if they fail to help you return the monitor ASAP:eek: I have had good luck with my new NEC multisync97f 19" CRT I got it at SAMS for around the safe price as your current monitor.

Good luck
bosox79

[Suramya]

This defiently is not normal. My computer has been running continuously for the past month and I don't smell anything burning (yet).

All the symptoms you have listed point towards a hardware failer. So I would suggest taking your monitor back to the seller and have it exchanged. It seems that you had the bad luck of getting a defective monitor.

Hope this helps.

- Sur

[Darksamurai]

That odd smell can happen when you're burning in a new monitor... you might want to start it up on a day you can pay attention to it...

I have had monitors catch fire (it was really cool... looked like the fourth of July right before it happened). You'll want to burn it in to make sure it's gonna survive...

Make sure the vents aren't blocked up, and see if it stops... if it still smells like that after the first 24 to 48 hours of use, call the company. You should be able to find their info on their web-site...

You might check out the vendor's web-site or hit sourceforge for a compatible driver (I usually just go into google and type in something like "Monitor (plus the model number)+Linux+drivers" and see what it spits up).

Seriously though... give it a little time to burn in... but keep an eye on it! When in doubt, get ahold of the company!

*edit* whoops... I noticed you mentioned you already checked the dimensions

[michaelk]

Its not normal for a monitor to smell like its burning. Unplug it and take it back to Walmart.

It is possible to destory a monitor with the wrong settings.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Just as a side note:

I did a little rant in /dev/random about using phrases like "HELP!" in the topics of posts.

This in my opinion is something urgent! Nobody wants to have their monitor catch fire!

But back to the matter at hand, I would agree with taking the monitor back. It could just be defective, or you could be using the wrong dimensions. I did have a monitor make that smell once, just before it went "ZZZZZT!" and never came back on.

[hop-frog]

Well, I had it replaced. So far so good. I only hope my new monitor outlasts the 1 year warranty. :p

[Suramya]

I would rather hope that if the monitor is going to go bad it should do so within the warranty period not after the warranty ends. :D

There is nothing as annoying as a device which goes bad a week after the warranty expires.

- Sur

[Stween]

Originally posted by michaelk
It is possible to destory a monitor with the wrong settings.

It *used* to be possible to do that. You'd be hard pushed to find a monitor these days that didn't protect itself from that, and indeed any monitor within the last 5 years for sure.

[phil_patnude]

i've got a KDS XF-9b (19" model of the same monitor) and haven't had any problems with it. You probably just got a lemon or something, as KDS has a pretty good reputation.

Another thing you might want to look out for is your video card...