I purchased an IBM 5153 CGA monitor online and it was damaged during shipping. I've attached a screenshot of what the screen looks like. Looking for anyone in the community to see the photo and immediatly know what got damaged so I can fix it.
That's not damaged, not really. Damaged would be CRT gone to air or flyback transformer dead/shorted (not as hard to replace as the CRT but not an easy part to get).
Frankly this is what I call a working monitor. It almost looks like it's not syncing to horizontal frequency, there should be a knob (on the back) to turn to adjust that. Might be the pot is dirty and has poor contact but the monitor looks clean, it can't be that bad. Try tweaking that first.
Agree ! What video card are you using ? Can you test on a different video card ?
Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun
Thank you so much for the quick responses. I was using a known good card but it supports multiple types of monitors and had the wrong settings. I assumed it was totally broken based on the physical condition as shown in the attached photos. I'm bummed it is physically damaged but it does work! Also I guess it was "free" after I got a refund and UPS had to reimburse the seller.
Ouch. Such a shame, monitor looks nice and not yellow and the case is now busted. I've seen people on YT repair worse but I'm not that good. You just can't trust sellers these days to properly pack stuff for shipping and the delivery not to drop and kick it several times.
Out of curiosity, what card did you use? ATI?
That's unfortunate. Shipping CRTs is always a big gamble.
It is technically repairable though, including restoration of the broken plastic. The missing plastic can be recreated by creating a silicone mold based on an undamaged case and then filled using resin. This would even preserve the plastic texturing, and the resin could be dyed to match the original case color or airbrushed after the fact.
Alternatively since the broken areas aren't huge, it might be also possible to re-sculpt the missing plastic with an epoxy putty.
I recently posted about an Atari computer restored using these techniques: Most insane computer restoration I've come across
I have two video cards that I could have used to test the monitor. Right now I forget which one it would have been. I have a LASER Monochrome Graphics/Color Graphics Card. It only has one switch between MDA and CGA. The other card is a VEGA Video 7 EGA card I use for my 5154. That card has a lot more switches.
I'm no expert in repairing cosmetic damage. I spend all my time inside the computers repairing them. It is a bummer it was damaged but I'm just happy it works.
