1 BTC reward to someone who can help me with my monitor issue

[TizzyTazzy]

My mother called up and said the power went out and that she couldn't get the monitor on her desktop computer on, so she changed to an older monitor we had.

I figured she just didn't know what she was doing, anyway a couple months later when I'm at her house I figure I could use the monitor as an extra screen for my laptop, when I plug it in it appears to be working correct, it flashes the ACER logo and says "no input" or whatever because it is yet to be plugged into the laptop.

Now, as soon as I plug into the laptop, the screen appears to just shut off, the button for power doesn't do anything. My PC detects it though, and I can now move my mouse completely out of the screen as though it is working.. but I see no picture.

This is a pretty new hardly used 22'' monitor.

Any ideas what is going on?

There is also this button on the monitor that if I hold down for a few seconds the screen comes up to where I can see it.

But then it poofs in about 10 seconds and I have to press the button again.. What is crap is this.

Figure out what the issue is and I'll send ya 1 BTC.  

Monitor is ACER p215h if that helps.

[Beaflag VonRathburg]

I have an Asus that through me for a loop for a while. On that monitor I had to manually set the input to HDMI otherwise it would not display a picture what so ever. That's random, but scroll through the menus and check the input.

[yogi]

If monitor is not working properly on two different computers then I would suggest it is a hardware issue.

[PatrickHarnett]

Are you plugging into a HDMI/DVI or VGA input.  I have monitors that run happily on VGA from my KVM switches, but when I plug in via the other cable I get nothing.  Took me a week to figure out until I pushed all the buttons on it and selected "digital" input (it was on the "-" button normally used for adjusting bright/contrast).  Even wasted $40 on a new cable thinking that was the problem.

[TheButterZone]

Set your laptop to 1920 x 1080 (native for the p215h) if you can (or on just the external display setting if your laptop's screen won't allow that high), and if it has an alt key for external monitor switch, hit that. It also might have the dual display settings wrong, so once you have the resolution set to the ACER's native, start flipping through the dual display settings. If all that doesn't work, try lower resolution settings for both displays until you get one that both the laptop screen and the ACER display simultaneously.

[ZeroShift]

I'd say you may have a bad cable, or your monitor is shot. Go with the less expensive route and try a different cable.

[Danijel Habek]

If it's not the cable problem, which might as well be as I've seen that too, it could be the issue of burned capacitors, shorted FET or a inverter board on that monitor. Try changing the monitor cable first and if that won't work head over to http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=9730, as there are some guys with Acer monitor problems that seem pretty close to yours.

If it's up the point of changing the inverter board you can open the monitor and look for the inverter board serial number or manufacturer, you can order a new or refurbished one through ebay. The price is around 30$.
I've repaired some Dell and Maxdata monitors by replacing inverter boards, and few Samsung monitors by replacing burned or bulged capacitors found on the inverter boards. The price for repairing those Samsung monitors was about 5$ worth of capacitors and 20mins of my time soldering and disassembly/assembly of monitor.

[Dargo]

I wonder if the OP will ever report back on whether any/none of these suggestions worked.

[KajiMaster]

Unplug power cable and hold down power button just like you would power cycle a modem.  Has worked a lot of times to save a "dead" monitor.

-kaji