[fishguy]

I HAD a 21" Viewsonic graphic series crt for the last 2 months at work (thats all the cheap ba-terds would let me have). Today it literally went up in smoke! No actual flames witnessed but it smoked up my office and hallway and would have set off the alarms but for the quick action of another employee. It was surge protected, in the open with plenty of ventilation, and our offices are always on the cold side. Unbelievable!!

[TailsToo]

my A17f has lasted for about 5 years, and still works fine! Maybe you're just unlucky!

[tooki]

There's no epidemic problem with ViewSonic products, the occasional piece of electronics going up in smoke just... happens.

tooki

[CatOne]

Originally posted by fishguy:
I HAD a 21" Viewsonic graphic series crt for the last 2 months at work (thats all the cheap ba-terds would let me have). Today it literally went up in smoke! No actual flames witnessed but it smoked up my office and hallway and would have set off the alarms but for the quick action of another employee. It was surge protected, in the open with plenty of ventilation, and our offices are always on the cold side. Unbelievable!!

One bad monitor does not a bad brand make.

I'm not a particular fan of their products (many of their LCD monitors are still VGA only!!!), but just because flames shot out of your monitor, doesn't mean it's a regular occurance.

And news: It's almost 100% sure that Viewsonic doesn't make the tubes they're selling you! Might even be Sony.

[cmoney]

I'm gonna have to disagree with most of the posters who say one bad monitor doesn't mean Viewsonic is bad. Generally I'd agree, except in this case. A year ago or so, we had to replace about 5 out of 10 21" Graphic Series CRTs. Not sure if they're the exact same model you've got, but we bought 10 of them and within 30 minutes of first installing them, 2 went up in smoke. 3 others died with no smoke about a week after being installed. All 5 were replaced by the vendor after we complained like crazy. All 10 are still in use now, but all 10 also suffer from poor image quality, color bleeding, weird geometry problems, etc. 1 or 2 seem like they're on their last legs.

Possibly a bad batch sure, but hearing someone else had similar problems is more than enough for me to never buy Viewsonic again.

[fiesta cat]

I've had three Viewsonic monitors over the past six years or so, and all work just fine (and I still have two of them, and my sister the other, and still use them everyday).

Over the past twenty years, I've had monitors go bad/*poof* with and without smoke. One was an NEC (that actually produced both smoke and flames), one was a Sony.

The fact is, all brands/types are going to have a few bad apples (pun intended) at some point. It's the nature of electronics.

[rglenn]

Originally posted by fiesta cat:
The fact is, all brands/types are going to have a few bad apples (pun intended) at some point. It's the nature of electronics.

That goes double for high-voltage electronics. The flyback transformer from a monitor alone is capable of doing Very Interesting Things to a wide variety of materials (especially when not hooked up to a monitor)

Also, monitors tend to contain Electrolytic capacitors, and tend to stress them somewhat. I recall reading that there was a problem with certain makes of Electrolytics a few years ago, with actual lifespans being a fraction of the rating. Could be some of those.

[awaspaas]

Yup, ViewSonic is fine - I've dealt with them for years and have found them very reliable. This could have happened with ANY crt manufacturer. Sorry about the smoke though!

[bradoesch]

I bought a 21" ViewSonic Professional Series PT813 from a family friend in the print business. It's the biggest, best looking CRT I've ever seen. It's 8 years old now and still working great.

[stevesnj]

Yeah just bad luck...viewsonic uses Sony Trinitron or Mitsu Diamontron guts in some of its products. They are a decent brand...just their LCD's don't seem to be as robust.