On Sun, 2004-06-27 at 15:01, Lin Tse Hsu wrote: > --- Andy Green <fedora@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > Hash: SHA1 snip > It isn't always harmless. The key is that you do see > a good display for a split second. This means that > your monitor is still good, but your software is > telling it to do something which is not conducive to > providing a good display. This means that your > monitor is probably OK. > > Here's how you can tell if your monitor was damaged by > XFree86. Pull the horizontal output transistor, and > check the CE junction in both directions. If there is > a dead short, the clicking is caused by the power > supply shutting off its over current contactor when it > cannot source the shorted load. You can replace the > dead HOT, but I would recommend buying a new monitor > which includes protection circuitry that prevents junk > software from drawing the flyback circuit off > resonance and overheating the HOT. I have personally > toasted 5 monitors with Linux, and 1 with Windows. > In over 20 years working with PCs I have never toasted a monitor when configuring it. I only recall having a couple fail at all, I usually upgrade them before they fail. In the early stages of developing Linux and X I heard horror stories of people doing so, but I AFAICT that was more hype and urban legend than actual problems. I have never met anyone who claims to have had that happen to them personally. With modern monitors and video cards and especially with the configuration software available now, it is very hard to even come close to setting up a server config that might damage a monitor when trying to start up. If you have toasted that many monitors it seems that 1) you are extraordinarily unlucky, or 2) your work practices are unsafe and you do not learn from mistakes. (I would prefer to believe 1 is the case)
