What did VGA monitor emit?

Our old 1990's Viewsonic 6E VGA Monitor emitted something into our apartment. It caused severe burning eyes, nose, throat, and lungs; hitching in breathing, headache, nausea, flushed "hot" face, and difficulty breathing. Plus, it made the air seem "heavy". The monitor was in a room with all windows closed and central A/C on. This went on for nearly three days, during which the monitor was on a total of 26 hours. When we realized it was the monitor, we removed it from the apartment. We have been ventilating with all windows and doors open all hours with five fans running for two weeks now. The "gas" is still in our apartment and causing the same symptoms (but milder unless we close the windows). We are sleeping on the balcony and only go inside for 20-30 minutes. On colder days (below 60 degrees) we can stay inside maybe an hour before we need fresh air. It's worse in warmer temperatures.

Every computer person we've talked to says they've never heard of a monitor doing this. One person thought the monitor was burning old plastic or had burned through to a dangerous plastic coating. The guy who was supposed to inspect it never came by. We live in a small town and there are not any true specialists in monitors here.

I'm desperate to find out what this "gas" is--and how much damage it has done (and is doing) to us. We have very little money and no other place to live. We are sleeping on the balcony, hoping that the "gas" will ventilate out. We fear it was absorbed by the carpeting (and other things) while the windows were closed and is now being released when it warms up. Considering it was a limited emission, we're hoping it will all release and be gone soon.

Has anyone ever heard of something like this? Do you have any idea what the "gas" would have been? If so, do you think it will eventually blow out anytime soon (or in weeks, months)? Would turning on the heater help? If we move, is it absorbed into all our stuff and will move with us and release into our new apartment?

I emailed Sam Goldwasser at his website and he said he could only guess that one of the electrolytica capacitors was the source, or possibly an overheated transformer or inductor. He did not know however what this would release into the air, but he did think it would dissipate and not do long-term health damage.

If anyone has any more ideas WHAT got released into the air and/or how long it should take to ventilate out or has anything to add to Mr. Goldwasser's guess, I would appreciate it.

THANK YOU! Jolene

Reply to
Jolene
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Some part overheated and smoked. It is bad to breath but not fatal. It releases particulate products that will settle everywhere and give off lingering odors. The worst is over with airing things out. Treat as if smoke damage to the apartment. You will need to first throw out the monitor, because it would be too difficult to clean even if it is an easy repair. The smell will linger in it. You will need to wash everything in the apartment.including Kitchen, utensils, pots and pans, windows, drapes, walls, all horizontal surfaces top to bottom. Vacuum carpet and upholstery, couch, and probably clean them as well.

Just clean what smells the worst first and keep cleaning. Any time you think you are finished, go outside for a while and come back in and find the worst again.

You should have killed the power to the entire apartment until you found the problem. Be grateful it isn't nuclear fallout.

Reply to
JB

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Adrian C
Reply to
Adrian C

Oh, and how did you realize this? What test did you apply? What evidence?

So it clearly is 'aired' out.

Then it clearly was not the monitor. The monitor is gone, by your admission, you aired the apartment for weeks, with multiple fans.

You need professional help. If nothing else, call the fire department and express concerns that you are experiencing CO poisioning.

It was NOT the monitor, so forget this path now.

I'd guess probably low level CO. Gas heat, gas hot water, vehicle fumes, and such.

No, not physically possible after three weeks of airing out with the device removed. Repeat: this is not possible. Period.

Very possibly CO from a defective gas appliance, or vehicle.

Let's say your contaiminated the apartment with 'something' (you say your monitor did it) and now you'd like to move and saddle the landlord/future tennant with a problem you created? Uh, are you serious?

Get an professional air-quality expert and he can tell you if something is in your air. Do it now. Worst case: call the fire department and ask them to check the CO levels.

Reply to
PeterD

In article , PeterD writes

Agreed.

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Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

At first when I read this, I could not believe it, but after reading the responses, I tend to agree, it likely was not the monitor. Since you are in an apartment complex, and not on the bottom floor, its possible someone below could have been smoking 'sh**' and the ' fallout ' deposited into the air caused your monitor to fail prematurely. I have worked on electronics for many years, and seen smoke inhalated units do some very strange things that cannot be explained. I know for a fact in a life threatining experience that people smoking ' sh**' will definately cause C02 detectors to trigger occasionally, so it tells you something about what they are putting in those things. The guy I tried to prosecute for doing this was getting all his money for it from government assistance, and he could not be touched because he was 'sick'. How convienient.

Reply to
circuit

From your description, I can not think of anything in a monitor that can cause a problem to the level that you are describing. I have been servicing monitors and TV sets for many years.

The only thing I can think of is if an electrolytic capacitor, or an inductor, or a resistor burned up because of a severe failure. This normally makes a little bit of a burned smell which is harmless and will go away over a few minutes to several hours. If the monitor is having a component failure to the degree where it is burning up the monitor cannot be operating for very long. It would have to fail and be shut down.

If you are living in an apartment building, there is more of a chance that one of the neighbors is doing something that is making a bad smell in your apartment. In the apartment building where I live there are neighbors who are always cooking, and sometimes they make odors that I find annoying.

Jerry G.

Reply to
Jerry G.

Whatever it was is irritating the mucous membranes. There are a large number of possibilities ranging from a organic volatiles to mustard gas. None of the possible irritants are produced by a CRT monitor. It's possible that the plasticizer from the plastic case may have broken down, but you would have to literally melt the entire case in order to produce a sufficiently large quantity. It's not the monitor.

You did not mention any odor or smells. This is an important clue. Any unusual smells or are you also having trouble smelling? Many organic volatiles are nasal desensitizers.

I think difficulty breathing would be a better description. When the lungs are irritated by almost anything, they try to wash away the contaminant. This fluid accumulates and blocks some of the avioli, resulting in less oxygen absorption, thus heavy breathing. Are you coughing up any liquids? Runny nose?

The symptoms sound like a fairly good match to methylamphetamine exposure:

Exposure to VOCs may cause symptoms such as nose and throat irritation, headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, confusion and breathing difficulties.

We had a squatter use an empty house as a meth lab and managed to contaminate the place. It may have been my imagination, but after about 30 minutes in the house, I had a sore throat that took about a day to disappear. The owners are essentially rebuilding the place and had to remove all the drywall, furniture, carpeting, and some of the plumbing. Fortunately, nothing was flushed into the septic.

You've exchange the room air perhaps 100 times since you started venting. Whatever "gas" was produced is long gone.

Look in your local environmental health directory for someone that can run tests for the chemicals used in a meth lab, its residue, and other contaminants under the general tag line of "sick house".

There are also some cheap drug testing kits that might be useful. Make sure it's for buildings, not individuals. For example:

It's not a gas. It was absorbed into the furniture, carpet, and dry wall. If it's a meth lab, you're in for a major re-construction job:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

It takes a lot to trigger an allergic response. It then takes a lot LESS to not trigger the same allergic response. Sometimes these ratios can be huge.

Your description sounds a little like mold contamination. Warmer, bothers you more. etc. Any coincidental increase in humidity? Or, some one in the apartment complex allowing mold to form? like standing water around their plumbing fixtures. We actually rinse bleach through the toilet tanks periodically to remove the buildup of slime mold, which smells like a basement. Also, just thought of "check your fridge" The water that runs out during defrost cycle may have started something growing too.

Mold formation can occur in a home where the plumbing failed 'slightly' and the drip [even inside the walls and out of sight] formed a location for the most horrible growth.... actually smelled like gray water, really nasty. Don't take mold contamination lightly.

On the bright side, mitigation may be your landlord's responsibility.

You do have an electrostatic air cleaner, right?

Robert

Reply to
Robert Macy

I have never heard so many techs that were oblivious to the idea of a smoked piece of consumer electronics and how to deal with it. Yes, it is obnoxious. No it won't kill you, but it is irritating, and even after ventilating, there will be lingering odors until you do a clean up. Treat it like smoke damage.

Reply to
JB

I call to your attention that the CRT monitor was still functional when it was removed from the apartment. I can't think of anything in the monitor that would both volatize and allow continued operation.

I call to your attention that there was no mention of smoke or noxious smells. There were only the original symptoms. I asked about these, but received no reply. They also ventillated the room for apparently several days without complete removal. That's usually sufficient for "smoke damage".

Incidentally, I've had electrolytics blow up and flybacks smoke several times in my chequered career. The smell lasts for perhaps a day at most, not 2+ weeks. My favorite was a can type electrolytic mounted on a bakelite base to the chassis. When it blew, the aluminum can simulated a rocket and punched a neat circular hole in the plastic (bakelite?) TV case. This was accompanied by oily paper confetti, some smoke, and a muffled bang. Repairing it was easy enough, but explaining the hole in the case to the customer was a bit awkward.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

In article , Jeff Liebermann writes

A class X capacitor across the mains. Seen it several times.

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Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

You didn't tell them you needed the hole to get the new part in? :)

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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

OK, that's possible. Unless the fuse is in the power connector, a fried capacitor will not blow the fuse. However, such caps are usually poly-something foil capacitors, which don't have a liquid electrolyte. They might melt and produce a plastic smell, but nothing comparable to the cloud of smog produced by an electrolytic.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
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Jeff Liebermann

I don't remember what lies I told the customer. At the time, I was working at a camera and hi-fi repair shop in Santa Monica CA. Most of the work was outsourced warranty repairs for an assortment of tape recorder manufacturers. We also took in non-warranty repairs, such as this TV. I plugged it in, went off somewhere, and then went to work on the set. It was showing a picture, but with plenty of hum bars and buzz from the speaker. I made a mental note to look at the power supply. As I was reaching for the on/off switch, the screen blanked out. I hesitated for about 5 seconds, which was when the cap blew. I just stood there like an idiot, while the other techs dived for cover. Burning confetti and oil smog filled the shop. I did manage to turn off the set, which was rather useless as the fuse had blown. The rest was cleaning up the mess and getting the smelly oil out of my hair.

Replacing 2 electrolytics and some dubious parts fixed the TV. However, there was still the hole in the case. I elected to leave it because I didn't have replacment case parts. Managment did what management does best (avoiding responsibility) and stuck me with the job of explaining the hole to the customer. I was about 18 years old at the time and did an impressive job of acting like an idiot. I don't remember what lies I offered but I do recall that they didn't work very well. So, I later glued a different colored piece of plastic (or bakelite) cut from a dead TV case into the hole. The customer was still grumbling, but paid the bill.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

On 9/7/2009 10:54 AM Jeff Liebermann spake thus:

"Goddamn pimple-faced kid punched a goddamn *hole* in my teevee!"

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Reply to
David Nebenzahl

Bondo & spray paint.

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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Way overkill, duct tape would work just fine.

Reply to
PeterD

Hi!

That's a lofty achievement for a monitor.

If something inside the monitor became too hot or burned out, it would certainly emit an odor. And that odor might even be annoying or difficult to put up with--especially in a room where little fresh air is getting in. Any irritation or difficultly it might be causing would fade within hours at the most.

I really doubt that the monitor is to blame. Even if the whole thing caught on fire and burnt to a crisp, airing out the room should have resolved the annoyance and irriation within a few hours.

As another poster suggested, I strongly urge you to consider other sources of toxic emissions, such as anything that could emit carbon monoxide. Whatever the cause, you must not treat this issue lightly because (at the very least) your health is at stake.

That said -- I bought a Viewsonic A90f+ monitor new back in 2003 or 4. As with most electronics, it had that "new smell" to it. However, unlike most items, where the smell wears off after the unit has been in use for a while, this monitor put off that smell for weeks after it was unboxed. The smell was more prevalent while the unit was powered on and running. It wasn't apparently hazardous, just annoying.

Finally, the odor faded and everything has been fine since.

William

Reply to
William R. Walsh

I'm not so sure that smell is all that safe. PVC was used in some monitor and TV cases. When hot, PVC belches toxic and noxious chemicals.

However, the quantities involved are microscopic and dissipate quickly. Still, it's something to worry about.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
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Jeff Liebermann

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