Monitor is failing, need recommendations

[AshleyG]

My Samsung 2433BW is beginning to have some frustrating issues with the side buttons. Within the past week or so, the power button has begun working only intermittently. It takes 7 or 8 presses at various angles to turn the monitor on or off. Rarely, pressing the Power button brings up the OSD. The other buttons continue to work properly.

The display is great, I'm beholden to the resolution (1920x1200, hate to give that up), and everything else works fine. Is the power button issue a portent of things to come (i.e. progressive failure)?

What issues could arise from just leaving the monitor on 24x7 and letting it drop into standby mode when the computer is off or asleep? Is that a viable option?

And, since I tend to lean towards expecting the worst, what would be a suitable replacement in the 24" and up range at or below (or even ever-so-slightly above) $300? I game frequently in my spare time (DDO & Guild Wars, Starcraft II starting next week), my wife and I do quite a bit of document editing, and my wife uses the system frequently for image editing and graphics work for her antiques store.

Thanks so much for your help.

 

[acameron_56]

Well I'll start off saying I'm certainly not an expert. However, I do not think that this problem is a progressive failure. And even if it is, the panel itself should be separate to the buttons so it shouldn't be effected. I also think that in that worse case, it wouldn't be too difficult to fix, or have fixed...I think its simply a simple circuit board. As for keeping it on, I don't see that as being an issue. Again in the worse case, it'll shorten its lifespan...but that point is moot if you can't even turn the thing on.

However, if you do plan on getting a new screen, I would recommend a dell 2407WFP. I'm not sure if you can find any new ones these days, but they can be found refurbished for less than 300. It's what I use, and I completely agree that this resolution is fantastic.

 

[cyclone3d]

It is probably either the power button microswitch is going out or you have a bad solder connection for the power switch.

It should be a really easy fix either way.