Flat (screen) broke

Replace it, IMHO.

Don't depend on it. It's hell to be without a monitor. My old CRT went down in flames (well, smoke, anyway) a couple of nights ago, and I was soooo lucky there was a spare available only a block away. While it could be that the power cord had gotten loose, or it's just the switch...don't depend on it.

You could probably get a better deal on a monitor though.

I'd get the new monitor anyway. A lot of people use two monitors at once (it's called a dual head setup) -- it's good if you do a lot of multitasking --and if something goes wrong, having one monitor less is better with two than one.

Or just keep the old one as a spare.

You can definitely use two monitors. Lots of people like a dual monitor desktop. I don't do it myself, but there's a lot of info on Google. Here's a decent-looking article I haven't read:

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/organization/twomonitors.aspx

That said, it could be that the power cable needed to be reseated or something similar. The monitor may actually work just fine. It could also be a flaky connection inside the monitor right where the power cable plugs in, or something like that. The flat screen that I'm using right now has that problem. If I disturb the power cable the screen goes blank and then I have to wiggle it to get it back. I could replace it, but I've got other stuff to deal with so I'm still using it for now.

You can probably return the monitor to Dell, though you would likely have to pay shipping and a restocking fee. Their policy is on the web site. I would say that it depends on how shaky you deem your monitor situation to be, how much it would cost to resend the new monitor relative to the cost of just keeping it, what kind of spare cash you have on hand, and how much you like having two monitors.

Good luck.

--J

Not that this will be of much help, but I despise Dell. My daughters laptop internet switch broke and--even though it was under warranty--they wouldn't honor it. They kept me on line like two hours trying to trouble shoot it--basically until I said 'forget it' in exasperation. I would never buy another Dell product unless its an absolute steal or a life or death emergency.
IMO HP and many others are much, much better options.

euclid said:

This new screen is 18.5 inches wide (the old one was 17). The result is that everything appears vertically squashed, horizontally stretched. And I hate it. Is there any way I can adjust the look of it to get it back to "normal"?

Click to expand...

The aspect ratio has changed, so you need to reset the screen resolution to something that matches your new monitor. For example, in XP, right click the screen and select "Properties" and then "Settings" and play with the slider until you get an image that's properly centered in the preview. A little trial and error and you should get something that looks good.

EDIT: Your background images will stretch, though, since Windows can't properly scale those. The solution here is to get new background images in the proper resolution.