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.
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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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