So, about 2 years ago I bought 2 flat screen LCD panels. When I first got them, I was running linux under VMWare on Windows XP on my workstation (the other way around didn’t work all that well, plus the guest doesn’t get good video and linux doesn’t need good video for running email and web browser, while the XP side had my flight simulator). However, there was a bug in VMWare such that if Windows XP enabled a screen saver or put the monitors into power save mode while the linux guest had focus, then you couldn’t ever get the machine out of power save mode. You had to hard reset the machine. So, I disabled the screen saver/power save mode in XP. That went on for about a year.

Now, that basically means the fluorescent bulb in the panel had been on for about 6,000 hours in the first year. Most bulbs only last about 10,000 hours then they start to die. And, sure enough, about a year later, the monitors started to become hard to turn on after they had been off for a little while. Sometimes it would take a few minutes, sometimes more like 15 minutes. When bulbs are going bad like that, they’ll keep running pretty much as long as you keep them running, but as they end their life, they become impossible to start. So, I did the only thing I could, and disabled power save mode again. This went on for about 3 months, and then by accident I let one get turned off for too long. I let the monitor attempt to start again for 3 days before I went to Circuit City and bought a new LCD panel. The nice thing is, the bulb was still under warranty. The only reason I bought a new panel is because the turnaround time on shipping it off for repairs is about 3-4 weeks. So, I shipped the thing off, and it came back after Thanksgiving.

Which brings me to the point of my post. After a three week or so turnaround, the panel now comes on just fine. But, the f***ing repair tech probably forgot to reconnect the internal speakers as he was reassembling the panel and now the speakers do nothing. I’m left with the choice of trying to open the thing up to see if it’s a simple disconnected wire (likely) and possible void any remaining warranty in doing so, or send it off for another three weeks. Someone should have checked their work before sending this thing back…