Dell monitor screen blank?

Attaching flat-screen monitor to old Dell Inspiron 3800

• My daughter has an old Dell Inspiron 3800, still working ok & she'd like to keep using it, in school. But the screen is going bad. Since she really uses the Dell only at her desk, we wondered if we could do this: 1. Buy a flat screen monitor and attach it. 2. Whenever the Dell goes bad (or is just too outmoded), buy a desktop without a monitor and use that flat screen one. This seems reasonable, but is it practical? Any thoughts on attaching a flat-screen to a laptop? And maybe what to look for? Thanks

• Answer:

  Hi bbb, I hope you find the following answer satisfactory. If you find that your question is not answered to your satisfaction, please request a clarification before rating and I will do my best to resolve any issues. According to the Dell tech. specifications for your Inspiron 3800: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pstar/en/sm_en/specs.htm your laptop does indeed have a 15-pin video connector. This connector is industry-standard across PCs and compatibles, and just about any monitor manufactured for PCs should have this connector. The telltale sign of this connector on your computer is that, unlike most of the other connectors that are "packaged" similarly, this connector has three rows of pins/holes instead of two. If you go monitor shopping and the customer associate asks you what kind of connector you need on your monitor, you can just say that your computer has a "standard VGA connector" and they should know what you're talking about, and be able to find a unit that meets your needs. The truth is that it's mostly Macintoshes and high-end industry-specific computers that deviate from the VGA-connector standard, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding a monitor that will work--in fact, you may not even be asked what kind of connector you need, once the customer associate learns you're looking for a monitor for a PC. That being said, just about any VGA-compatible monitor you can choose will work with both your current laptop and any new PC compatible you are likely to buy. You could even buy an old $70 clunker of a CRT monitor, and it would work fine. Here's some general information on how to choose a monitor: Your current computer supports a maximum resolution of either 800x600 (if it has a 12 inch screen) or 1024x768 (if it has a 14 inch screen). Just about every monitor these days supports 1024x768 resolution, so that shouldn't be a problem--but this is probably the lowest resolution you want to settle for. If you get a larger monitor, you'll want it to have a higher maximum resolution. Common wisdom has that a 15-inch monitor should have at least 1024x768 resolution; a 17-inch, 1280x1024; and a 19-inch 1600x1200. Higher resolution affords you more "real estate" on your desktop, but it can also make text and icons smaller and harder to read. There are settings in Windows, though, where you can adjust text sizes, if you desire. As for flat-screen monitors (and here I'm assuming you mean LCD or "flat panel" monitors and the like, rather than "flat screen" CRTs, which are not much different from traditional monitors), here's some information on how to shop for them: Flat-screen monitors offer a lot of advantages over traditional CRT monitors--they are much lighter, they use a lot less power, and they can give a very sharp, vivid picture--however, there are some disadvantages. First of all, they are extremely costly, easily several times the price of a comparable CRT, and price increases geometrically with size: 15 inch monitors can go for about $300, 17-inch for about $450, and 19-inch for upwards of $800. Other issues to be aware of include the fact that some flat-screens don't "scale up" the resolution if they are run at a lower resolution than they are designed--that is, on some flat screens, if the monitor has a maximum resolution of 1024x768, a signal from the computer running at 800x600 will display in the center of the screen surrounded by a black border, rather than stretched out to the screen's edges. Also, flat screen monitors can vary considerably in their brightness, and their ability to update the screen quickly without "ghosting" effects (this can make movies and fast-moving video games hard to view). There is also the tendency (as you may have noticed with your laptop monitor) for individual pixels or rows of pixels to die on a flat-screen. Production of LCD monitors is constantly improving, though, so these issues are less of a problem than they used to be. You should definitely check out this previous Answer by haversian-ga on how to select a flat-screen monitor. http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=302399 Here also are some handy guides on how to select a monitor in general: http://micro.uoregon.edu/buyersguide/buyingadisplay.html http://www.svca.org/articles/BuyingaMonitor.htm I hope this answers your question! If any questions remain or if anything is unclear, please request a clarification and I will do my best to answer more completely. Thanks, smudgy. Search techniques: Google search terms: <buying flat-screen monitor> Froogle search terms: <15 inch lcd monitor> <17 inch lcd monitor> <19 inch lcd monitor> Dell webpage search: <Inspiron 3800>