Fresh Fish Served Daily

When taking out the trash a few weeks ago I saw a flat-panel monitor sitting next to the dumpster with a note attached that said “broken”. Two things sprung to mind immediately:

1) The layperson’s definition of “broken” does not equal mine and Dane’s definition of “broken”
2) Even if it is broken, the dumpster is not the place to dispose of an LCD monitor

I mentioned it to Dane and we decided to take it apart and give it a look. Considering that it looked almost new and it was bigger than my current 15″ LCD, it would be a great find if we could fix it. If not, we figured we’d find a proper disposal service. No harm done.

Dane plugged it in and attached it to the desktop. The power light came on, but the display stayed blank. Watching it closely for a while we could tell that occasionally it would flicker briefly. After some research Dane determined that it was most likely the voltage inverter. He found one on ebay for around $40 and we decided to try it out. The thing came in record time (by US Mail, even, in under two days!) Turns out that Dane’s hunch was right, and it works great. So I have a new (to me) 19″ 21″ LCD monitor for under $50.

I love living with an engineer.