I was given a HP1740 monitor that I was told did not work. It did work but only for a few minutes then the screen would go dark. It was like 2 seconds to black but delayed. If you turned the monitor off then back on it would again stay on for a few minutes.
The first thing a found was a couple of bad caps so I immediately changed them thinking I had solved the problem. When I put the monitor back together and tested it I was disappointed to discover the problem remained.
I then decided to use my bulb tester. The first three looked about the same but when I got to the fourth bulb the screen glowed orange and after a short while it started to strobe somewhat. I had found the true cause of the problem a bad CCFL.
To buy the proper replacement bulbs (It really needed 2 from the look of the other one) , wiring harness, etc, plus shipping it would have run over $35 from the CCFL Warehouse. If this was a 20+ inch wide screen it may have been worth it but I was not going to spend that much on a crappy 17" monitor. I measured the bad CCFL's at 340mm X 2.4mm. When I checked the overstock section I found they had 336mm X 2.0mm bulbs with the wiring attached for $4 each. Hmmm.... 2 already harnessed bulbs plus $6 shipping came out to $13. I was not sure if you could sub smaller bulbs but it was worth $13 to satisfy my curiosity to attempt the use of smaller bulbs.
You can see by the pictures it worked and the results were better than I expected. It actually looks worse in the picture than it does in person. I am very pleased with the results and I now know a little more than I did before this repair. Is it perfect? No. Is it usable? Yes. Maybe this thread will help someone else in the future.
The first thing a found was a couple of bad caps so I immediately changed them thinking I had solved the problem. When I put the monitor back together and tested it I was disappointed to discover the problem remained.
I then decided to use my bulb tester. The first three looked about the same but when I got to the fourth bulb the screen glowed orange and after a short while it started to strobe somewhat. I had found the true cause of the problem a bad CCFL.
To buy the proper replacement bulbs (It really needed 2 from the look of the other one) , wiring harness, etc, plus shipping it would have run over $35 from the CCFL Warehouse. If this was a 20+ inch wide screen it may have been worth it but I was not going to spend that much on a crappy 17" monitor. I measured the bad CCFL's at 340mm X 2.4mm. When I checked the overstock section I found they had 336mm X 2.0mm bulbs with the wiring attached for $4 each. Hmmm.... 2 already harnessed bulbs plus $6 shipping came out to $13. I was not sure if you could sub smaller bulbs but it was worth $13 to satisfy my curiosity to attempt the use of smaller bulbs.
You can see by the pictures it worked and the results were better than I expected. It actually looks worse in the picture than it does in person. I am very pleased with the results and I now know a little more than I did before this repair. Is it perfect? No. Is it usable? Yes. Maybe this thread will help someone else in the future.
Attached Files
But today, I’m making an exception here. Why? No idea. Perhaps only because the repair details are still “fresh” in my head… which is ironic, given this is a 16 year old monitor that hardly anyone will care about today. It is new to me, though. 
I picked it up last November from someone on my local Craigslist. It wasn’t very close to where I live, but was close to a family friend that I had to go visit anyways. So after watching the posting on Craigslist for a few weeks and seeing it getting...
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