Monitor Advice

Much to my annoyance, my monitor decided to pack it in on Saturday, and I’m not quite sure what to do about it. The monitor was a good one, a 22″ Samsung Synchmaster, but it had been on the blink for a while. Just to describe the issue, if the screen ever lost signal for longer than a few minutes, either from turning it off directly, or turning the PC off, it would take about half an hour of restarting it and/or PC before the image would “stay” on screen. Most attempts at restarting it would follow a pattern of flickering slightly, sometimes with a strong image, sometimes a weak barely visible one, and stay for varying lengths of time (up to maybe 30 secs, but usually just a second or it would flash) before going blank again. Eventually, after many attempts (50+ recently), a weak image would remain on through the boot process, slowly gaining strength until finally coming on full power and work fine until it lost power or signal again. This has meant having to leave it on almost constantly for over a year. That’s a bitch for electric, but I generally have my pc doing something even when I’m not on it, so it probably would’ve been on regardless.

Anyway, on Saturday I was happily playing TF2, with an internet connection that had literally just been fixed after an issue on our cable, when Streff messages me. I quit game, chat a moment on Steam, he gives me a link to a spotify track list, I follow it, get about 10 seconds into song, and screen goes black. Song is playing in background and I can hear steam messages, so PC is working, but screen is fucked. I turn it off and back on, and it flickers with a faint image for around a minute, but then goes blank. It’s the exact same way it acts when it’s played up before, so I go through the usual fix process of turning it on and off a few times, but have no joy. Just incase it’s my PC I hit the restart button but it’s just the same. The flickering is lasting longer than it usually does when the monitor plays up though, so I’m getting concerned because the length of time the image is “staying” is normally enough for it to come on properly. It gradually gets weaker, and now it’s not coming on at all.

The monitor itself is getting power, but the on button, which is normally ringed with a solid blue light when on, is flashing constantly. If I press the button, nothing happens, it just flashes, and will only stop a few seconds after power is switched off at the plug.

Now I’m not an expert when it comes to electronics, so forgive me if this sounds stupid, but I’m guessing a monitor needs a kick from somewhere to spark it into life (like a sparkplug in a car), and if that’s true, then does it sound like I have a problem with this process? If so, or if something else that doesn’t involve the whole monitor being fucked, does anyone know whether it’s worth trying to get fixed, or should I just cut my losses and look for a new one?

If a new monitor is probably the easiest option, does anyone have any recommendations?