a broken thought

Now I know what a burning circuit board smells like.  My few-years-old Envision monitor just gave up the ghost — right in front of my eyes.

I had been noticing problems with it for about a week.  Every once in a while there would be a staticy, horizontal offset problem in some random rows for just a moment.  When it finally went out, the whole screen got staticy and was accompanied by a crackling sound.  I ducked my head to follow the sound and noticed an orange glow coming from beneath the monitor.  No, not aliens.  Just a chunk of the circuit board going up in flames.

I shut down as quickly as possible and unplugged the monitor.  The smell — a bit like fireworks, but more acrid — was starting to fill the room, so I got it out of here.  Luckily, I have a backup monitor (I’m a bit of an electronics pack rat), so I’m still able to use my computer.