You may be lucky and there is a replacement available somewhere, although I have found it is near impossible to find ones for random computer monitors. Every machine has their own unique transformer in them pretty much, you cannot just take any random one although if you really are desperate and know what you are doing, it can be possible to adapt something (I have done that with a few TVs).

I got a ViewSonic e651-3 for free at work. It was stored for a long time in a kinda dry place. It was also arching and did that zapping sound along with flashing image. I opened it and cleaned some of the dust around the flyback transformer. While I was there I also adjusted the brightness on the transformer. It is now working again, looks nice and bright and no more arching!

I somewhat recently purchased a viewsonic that has a similar issue. Electric crack type sound, image shimmers/shakes as if the monitor was briefly turned off and back on. In this monitor, the very top of the image is also slightly crunched. The analog board is quite simple though. I replaced about 1/3 to half of the caps, cleaned up the inside of the thing as well, this significantly improved but didn't solve both issues. Still, the improvement makes me think recapping the rest might help. The cracking went from happening every minute or so to maybe happening once per hour. At random, it will also now boot without the top of the image being crunched, although it slowly becomes crunched the longer it's on for.

If it does end up being the flyback, I'm thinking about trying to actually rewind it, just to see how difficult rewinding a flyback actually is.

Tiido wrote on 2023-09-05, 18:56:

You may be lucky and there is a replacement available somewhere, although I have found it is near impossible to find ones for random computer monitors. Every machine has their own unique transformer in them pretty much, you cannot just take any random one although if you really are desperate and know what you are doing, it can be possible to adapt something (I have done that with a few TVs).

I found a label on the chassis of the monitor that says the operating high voltage at minimum brightness is 26 kV and the maximum is 27 kV. I have searched for the flyback transformer on ebay and there are a lot of them brand new and from one example it seemed it was made in 2019? I am not sure. But yeah, it seems there are specific types for specific crts/tubes, the first line of numbers and letters from the flyback transformers's label determines which type it is.

I haven't looked up which type mine is yet, so I still need to find out if I can actually replace it. But as far as technical specs goes, I think you need to match only the minimum/maximum Voltage? At least that's what I was able to determine from the label and the ebay listings.

Regardless, first I will try to remove the transformers's connector from the tube and clean it first and see if that improves anything.

Windows98_guy wrote on 2023-09-05, 18:47:

lowlytech wrote on 2018-06-22, 02:04:

Hate to say it, but everytime I get that zap/crack sound and the display cuts out when you hear it, that is the flyback transformer. Something about the winding's break down and short or arc. I have only changed about 4 myself, and everytime I do I sweat bullets due to all the horror stories I here about the high voltage shock risks.

Is it even possible to get a flyback transformer for a crt? Because if not, I'd hate to buy a new-old stock one, especially if I need to buy a specific kind for a specific crt board.

Depends on the chassis model

There's a label on the flyback itself, it has some numbers on it and one of them is the transformer type/model and replacemet needs to have the same on it. It is quite unlikely it will turn up any matches but it is always worth trying.

I may be a little late on this, since i fixed the problem some time ago, but I will post my results anyways in case somebody else has this problem in the future.

So I decided to deep clean the inside of the CRT, even under the anode, and...the problem was fixed. There are no more crack sounds or split second screen flickers, or at least they're not as intense and common as they were previously. So yeah I guess it was either moisture or intense dust inside the monitor. Thank goodness.