That week in 1998 when my CRT monitor died during a LAN party

We were all set up in my buddy's basement in Omaha, six of us playing Quake II through a hub, and my old 17-inch Gateway monitor just went pop and started smoking. I spent the next two days trying to find a used replacement at thrift stores before someone's dad brought home a busted IBM from his office. Has anyone else had a critical piece of tech fail right in the middle of an epic gaming session?

2 comments

2 Comments

simonmoore14d ago

Man, that's brutal. A smoking monitor during a LAN party is rough. I had something similar happen back in 2000 when my sound card just died mid-round in Half-Life. Did you ever figure out what actually caused the pop, like was it a capacitor blowing or something else?

sam_anderson14d agoTop Commenter

90% sure it was a capacitor on the flyback transformer that let go. Those old CRTs had some serious heat buildup inside and the glue they used for components would get brittle over time. I never bothered cracking it open to confirm since it was already toast and monitor repair stopped being worth the hassle.