Dell monitor lifespan?

DebAmstutz · April 02, 2012, 11:20:22 AM

What should the life expectancy be for a Dell 17" flatscreen monitor? There are two in the "bone pile" here and I think they may be only two years old. Should we expect more than two years from a monitor like that? I don't have the exact date as I'd have to go through the credit card statements to find the purchase and I haven't been that ambitious...yet.

Jeff Zylstra · April 02, 2012, 12:33:50 PM

Quote from: DebAmstutz on April 02, 2012, 11:20:22 AM
What should the life expectancy be for a Dell 17" flatscreen monitor? There are two in the "bone pile" here and I think they may be only two years old. Should we expect more than two years from a monitor like that? I don't have the exact date as I'd have to go through the credit card statements to find the purchase and I haven't been that ambitious...yet.

I usually get at least 4-5 years out of a flat panel monitors from various manufacturers. All of mine are powered through UPS units. Not sure if that has anything to do with it or not, but I have several manufacturers and I've only had 2 failures in about 7-8 years.

Gene Foraker · April 02, 2012, 12:45:49 PM

Knock on wood, but I have never had one go out yet. I think my oldest (an NEC) is about 8 years old, a Dell is maybe 4 years old and the rest are cheap Hanns-G or AOC around 3 or 4 years old.

DebAmstutz · April 02, 2012, 12:53:55 PM

Do you turn the monitors off every night or not? I'm not sure that these were ever turned off, so that's why I'm asking. I've had long lives with monitors I have had, but I turn mine off each night.

Jeff Zylstra · April 02, 2012, 01:03:19 PM

I believe that all of our machines have their Windows power settings set to turn off monitors after 20 minutes of inactivity, and hard disks after an hour. That would certainly help things.

Hans Manhave · April 02, 2012, 01:28:05 PM

Not had a Dell flat screen go bad in 9 years. Some have been left on, some are turned off when the office closes. Recently had a MAG screen go out after 4 or 5 years. It was always turned off after use. I have a Dell where the on/off switch malfunctioned, but I tore that button off and now use a paperclip to push the on/off bubble.

Gene Foraker · April 02, 2012, 02:45:43 PM

We don't physically turn them off, but they go off with power saving settings. There is power to the monitors with a small orange light on.

Jeff Golas · April 04, 2012, 10:51:21 AM

Ok let's see if I can actually respond this time - just an FYI, if you have Dell monitors under the 3 year mark, return them, they have 3 year warranties (I think in most cases)

Also out of 120+ monitors, I've had about 3-4 die so far, and all of the ones that died are probably 5-6+ year old 17" models. They have known issues with bad capacitors and transistors like most other monitors/LCD tvs. I'm pretty sure most if not all Dell monitors are made by Samsung.

Jeff Golas · April 04, 2012, 11:43:41 AM

PS - going back 15 years when I used to repair monitors for a living...MAG Innovision was JUNK. Much different/fancy when it came to features and functionality, but quality/lifespan sucked.