Monitor Replacement Part 3 - Devastating Failure

There it is.... Well, the backlights worked at least, right?

Anyway I set the LCD matrix in the housing (went to lowe's and called local electronics shop and nobody had heard of that double sided tape so I gave up on it) and put the metal surround back on. Used a little electrical tape to secure everything and went for a test run.

I think the worst part about this is I had the monitor face down on my desk when I first turned it on. When I saw the backlights come... never mind. Needless to say, I'm super down about this.

I have no idea what happened here. The screen obviously cracked in a few places, but that's not what's causing the blue. I've seen tons of people drop their laptops, completely shattering the LCD but there are still portions of different colors and usually have small portions that still accurately map. Not just blue. It doesn't seem to be a problem with the connection to my laptop either (Aluminum 13" MacBook) because the monitor's built in menus weren't working either.

The monitor is no longer on sale at Staples.com but I was able to find it for $107 at PCconnection with free shipping so hopefully it will arrive sometime next week.

Lesson #1

This is how tomorrow was supposed to go for me: Drive to portland, spend some quality time with the family, drop by Powell's Books to grab a couple computer modding books if I can find any, and, oh yeah, buy my iMac. Bottom line is, it's almost 5:00pm and as of now, there are no 17" iMac G4s currently up for sale on CraigsList. So tomorrow, I will still be heading up to Portland to hang with the fam, and I will still go to Powell's and look for some books. But I will not be buying my iMac.

And you're sitting there thinking I don't really care about this guy's personal problems, what's the point?

My point is, I had planned for about a week now to buy my iMac in Portland. When I discovered that Portland's supply of iMacs was fresh out, I panicked. I ravaged through eBay's collection of iMacs and, within 5 minutes, bought one. Now I'd say that all-in-all, I got a pretty good deal: 17" in good condition with a broken screen for $160 shipped. However, I didn't bother asking the seller to email me some high resolution pictures of it so I could really verify the unit's condition. This was not a super smart move. However, I have this LCD monitor laying in pieces on my desk and I just couldn't stand the idea of waiting any longer.

Now, after even more blabbling, what should you take away from this? Either have lots of patience or procure your iMac before the rest of your stuff ships and you start ripping it apart.

I'm not entirely sure when my iMac is going to get here. Hopefully next week sometime. That's another thing about eBay: so much waiting....