mccaughe@turing.cs.rpi.edu (Eric McCaughrin) (10/08/90)
My Sun 2 monochrome monitor is starting to become flaky. Given the number of flyback transformers that have failed in Sun monitors, I'm wondering if mine is having the same problems. Maybe by describing the symptoms, someone can confirm if the flyback transformer is the problem and I can go ahead and order the advertised kit to replace it. Or perhaps someone knows if it is something else. It is a bit hard to describe what's happening, but here's a shot: Suppose you start X windows with the default grey background pattern and nothing else. When that's the case, everything is fine. Now add some xterms (white background) with little or no text inside. Things are still OK except the top and bottom of a window cause a ripple effect that spans horizontally all the way across the window. As more and more text fills the windows, the text becomes more wavy and the window edges are very wavy. Things are really bad if, for example, you have a dark window on a mostly white background. It seems that black-to-white and white-to- black transitions cause the distortion. The second symptom is that the right margin (between the edge of the image and the edge of the monitor) is getting larger. At least that's what it seems since it is now almost twice as big as the left margin. I don't know if this problem is related to the waviness. My gut feeling is that the right deflector plate voltage is not as high as it should. However, I don't want to open the monitor and start playing with adjustments because I don't want to screw things up. However, if anyone has any expertise that they can lend, please let me know. Eric McCaughrin mccaughe@cs.rpi.edu (518) 272-6197