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April 13th, 2006 00:00
Flat panel display wouldn't power up
I have a new (bought in February) Dell UltraSharp 1905FP flat panel display. This morning, when I turned on the computer, I hit the power button on the monitor, just like I do every morning, and nothing. No light of any color came on in the power button itself, and the monitor remained blank. After several attempts, including making sure that the power cord was well seated on both ends and plugged into a working receptacle, I unhooked the monitor from the computer and plugged it into another working receptacle. Tried again to turn it on, but no dice. Tried multiple times, with suitable wait times in between in case something needed to reset. Nothing.
Then I spent half an hour trying without success to chat with hardware support. You don't even want to know about that. But after searching the website for a phone number, I finally got the tech support number from some hapless sales person (why is this so difficult?) and spoke to a nice Indian gentleman.
By this time an hour has gone by, and while I'm on hold, I saunter by the monitor and hit the power button, and LO AND BEHOLD it powers up.
So here's my question. Are these power buttons giving problems? Are they flaky? intermittent? Am I not pressing it properly? Honestly, how hard could it be? Since I have two years and ten months left on my warranty, I'm willing to give it another chance.
If the power button is flaky, one solution might be to just shut down the UPS, thus cutting the power to the monitor and leaving the power button alone. Would this cause problems? Would powering up the UPS send unhealthy spiky power to my monitor? Or maybe I could just turn off the computer and leave the monitor on? Anybody else have this problem?
RE: hardware chat problems.
You need a service tag to talk to hardware chat (none needed for sales, of course).
When you ask, What is a service tag, the popup tells you it's a number on the back of your computer or peripheral. So I look on the back of the monitor. No number matching that description. I try every number on the blessed thing. None work.
The nice Indian gentleman told me that I should have used the number on my computer. OK, so now I know.
osprey4
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April 13th, 2006 10:00
But you bring up a good question that several regulars have complained about. How do you get service for a monitor, which does not have a service tag number (only systems do)? The Dell mods have suggested just using any system service tag number, or even make one up!!. Then explain in the details that this is a monitor issue and provide the serial number.
cmwilson
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April 13th, 2006 19:00
I did check that board and discovered some poor soul who bought a Dell monitor but didn't have a Dell computer, and therefore had no Service Tag at all whatsoever. This really ought to be easier.
I read in another forum the complaints of some poor salesperson at Dell whose income took a hit because of all the people who went through sales when all other attempts to contact Dell failed. Really, I'd just like a simple e-mail adresss with no hoops to jump through, so that I could ask a simple question, such as "I need to RMA my monitor, who do I talk to?" or "My problem is with a peripheral that has no service tag."
Oh, and I called sales because all the voice mail on the tech support phone numbers also insist on a Service Tag.
Message Edited by cmwilson on 04-13-200601:13 PM