I have a 4 year-old Samsung SyncMaster 2233 LCD display and recently part of the display got dim. I've checked all external connections and they look fine.
Symptoms:
- Top of monitor is dim (maybe about 35% brightness) and the brightness increases down to about 100% at the bottom (roughly in a linear gradient)
- I can smell ozone when the monitor is running
- Other than brightness, the display looks fine (no distortions or anything)
- The dimness is constant and I have observed no flickering
- Turning the monitor off and on again has not apparent effect
What could be the cause?
I've read that common issues are inverter failure and backlight (CCFL) failure. Since the backlight is fluorescent, I'd expect some flickering or some binary (0% or 100% brightness) behavior. I haven't found a good list of inverter failure symptoms.