My 17" flat screen monitor has died....I think.
Have been noticing a few times over the last wee that it made a TINY zap sound and flickered at times.

Today it zapped & went away. Hooked up an old pavillion M50 I had, seemed like a straight forward fix. 5 min later the M50 flickered once. Now I' m paranoid. Anything that could make the monitor death a symptom of another cause?

I'm going to pick up a new LCD monitor tomorrow, but don't want to fry it as well.

BTW, plugged in the dead monitor and tried it again....still dead.I'm not saying it definitely is the problem but if 2 different monitors exhibited the same SYMPTOMS that vid card may be the culprit...either that or your electrical wiring going to the machine and components...Try your monitor on another computer. patio is onto something here...

If it works, I'd suspect your video card.
If it truly is fried, it might be electrical like patio suggests, and if that's the case, I absolutely would not hook a new monitor up to that machine.i had the same problem before. I had this great 17" CTX monitor, probably the best i've had at all albeit huge and heavy, and I remember a few weeks before it died, it'd lose a bit of color and also make that zapping. Then I finally remember it zapped for good. I just bought some generic Wal-Mart 15" LCD and it works, so i'm pretty sure it is your monitor.

EDIT: this only pretty much applies to older monitors. If your monitor is pretty new, i would suggest the video card. and just a question; when it zapped, did it keep making that zapping noise (sounds like something frying on a pan)? And did it stink up after a while?I picked up a new LCD flatscreen and all seems ok. No further flickers.

Question about my settings..
Everything is short and elongated on the new monitor. I tried adjusting the settings, but the ones suggested by the monitor paperwork aren't available to me.
If I get a new video card with the available settings, will this be corrected?

BTW, I downloaded & installed the driver for the monitor, so the model # now shows up in the settings box, so I think I'm set there.

I guess I just want to know if I'll get it to look "normal " again, or did I waste $ for the LCD ESPECIALLY with the new expense of a new vid card.

PS THANKS for the help, as always.