Originally Posted by Goingincirclez
I had a 19" MAG that only cost $289 new back in 1999. Yeah, you get what you pay for and this thing was a piece o' crap, and about a year later it displayed the random flickering symptoms.
Later on it would just fade out entirely, and then with a good smack it would fade back in.
I was able to rectify this by taking an old case fan and rigging it to a 12V power adapter (if you're really really good you could probably rig it to the monitor's own power supply but I would not recommend trying that!) I mounted this to the top of the montior's plastic casing to help exhaust the hot air out. Believe it or not, that helped and for about a whole year I had no more problems! (The monitor did eventually start exhibiting the symptoms again, and I used it for a bench monitor before giving it to someone needier than I).
I had a friend who inherited a 21" monster with similar problems. He took the plastic casing off entirely and ran it like that. Dangerous to be sure, but it did have an internal metal sheild and he was very mindful of this hazard. He got his fair share of good use from it before eventually chucking it.
I also had an old PB 14" that blanked out... I'm not monitor tech but I found that the CRT would "sag" against some other component and that was making the signal go out... I very carefully wedged some legos (only solid non-conductive thing I had handy at the time!) in there and got 3 more years from it.
Bottom line is how badly do you want to save it, how much are you willing to possibly learn? You don't have anything to lose from trying, BUT as others have said, be very very VERY careful with an exposed CRT.
Hope that helps...
-Tony