Dead monitor? or nearly dead

[charger]

Hey all

Well just about 2 hours ago whilst playing cs:source my monitor decided to go black and display nothing however it does occasionaly flash and show whats on the desktop, after i alt tab'd out of the game and managed to close it. I rebooted with the same monitor and it just occasianlly flashed what i would normally see in a normal boot process. Now at first i thought the graphics card had gone but its not as im currently on a spare 15inch TFT which seems to be working flawlessly.
Now does this mean it is dead? or about to completely die? have the internal light or backing light or whatever tube inside gone or nearly gone on me?
Its a 17inch Samsung SyncMaster 710N TFT monitor.

Thanks for any input

charger

[chrestomanci]

If it is in warranty, you should make a claim.

Sounds like a loose connection or dry solder joint, or perhaps the backlight tube is on the way out.

If it is out of waranty then it might be worth opening up to have a look, depends how confident you are. If not you could always ebay it for spares.

[lodore]

oddly i have the same problem on my lcd and im using my old 17inch crt whihc is working fine.

i think its the back light on mine and yours.

i done a quick google search and it is the backlight on both moniters tons of people have this problem.

the genaral consencis is it costs about the same amount to get the tube replaced aas it is to get a newer better moniter