I bought this Samsung LS24F350F LCD monitor around 2 years ago. One day, after I had been using it for a few months, it suddenly got really dark. I could hardly see anything. I pressed the button on the back to get into the settings and adjusted the BRIGHTNESS. The picture wasn't as good as ORIGINALLY, but at least I could see. A few months later it happened again. Once again I pressed the button and fiddled around with settings to make the picture acceptable. It happened again a few months later. Today, it happened again. No amount of fiddling with the settings makes the picture acceptable. I can hardly see what I'm typing right now.

Is the monitor dead? Is it NORMAL for LCD monitors to do this within a few months of purchase, and eventually become USELESS only 2-3 years later? Because this never used to happen with monitors. I've had several monitors since the late 80s and they used to last longer than 2-3 years. And I never had this problem with one suddenly going dark every few months.Sounds like the backlight needs replacing.It was the cable. I didn't know you're supposed to use an HDMI cable with this monitor. I was using the same cable I had for the previous monitor which was an old fashioned female PIN cable with an HDMI adapter on the end. I also had it plugged into an HDMI slot which wasn't for the video adapter. So it worked all this time but not well. The display looks great now.