How soon will the fluorescent tubes in LCD TVs start burning out?

[who?]

How soon will the fluorescent tubes in LCD TVs start burning out? And will people replace just the tubes or the entire TVs? And will there be a enough tubes available? I wonder about this as I look at my TV.

 

[Subyman]

Replace entire TV. The CCFL panels slowly dim over time and sometimes change their color gamut. As a reference, I have an old Dell 21" monitor from 2005. It still works fine, but is noticeably dimmer from when it was new and has a yellowish hue. Degradation will take place slowly, so some people will not notice for 8+ years. Cheaper TVs may burn out completely before their lifetime and will need to be replaced. There is not an easy way to replace the backlights. Most are attached to the LCD panel and is not something a consumer can easily do.

 

[PliotronX]

Replace entire TV. The CCFL panels slowly dim over time and sometimes change their color gamut. As a reference, I have an old Dell 21" monitor from 2005. It still works fine, but is noticeably dimmer from when it was new and has a yellowish hue. Degradation will take place slowly, so some people will not notice for 8+ years. Cheaper TVs may burn out completely before their lifetime and will need to be replaced. There is not an easy way to replace the backlights. Most are attached to the LCD panel and is not something a consumer can easily do.

+1 !

The best way to notice this effect is to put a new TV or monitor beside it. No amount of gamma or brightness will offset the dimming BL. They rarely just "die" they will just get dimmer and dimmer until one day they cannot overcome ambient lighting. I think the power supply will crap out before the CCFL does, at least from what I have seen.

 

[Matt1970]

They are a major pain in the butt to replace. As suggested you are better of just replacing the monitor.

 

[Anteaus]

Ironically, the same high contrast ratios that are considered key advertised features can choke the service life of the backlight. If you avoid using features like "Dynamic Contrast" and lower the brightness to reasonable levels, the service life of the backlight can be extended dramatically. Depending on the TV, running the backlight at full brightness can cut the service life of the tv in half in some circumstances.

 

[utahraptor]

I had a Samsung LCD computer monitor that lasted for many years, but finally the tubes started flickering on a cold start and it would take longer and longer to finally stop flickering. Eventually it would not stop flickering so I replaced it.

 

[C1]

As I recall, the CCFL average life should be part of the specification for your monitor. The value is usually in the range of 25K to 35K hours and represents the average number of hours for samples of your particular lamp to reduce to half of their "initial" brightness/intensity.

 

[imagoon]

I would guess that in most cases the TV's and monitors will die before the CFL goes out in most decent brand monitors. Heck I only recently moved the brightness on my Dell 2001FP I bought in 2003 from 0 -> 10 (of 100.) I used the color adjust to color match it to my new Dell 27" monitor.

 

[Revolution 11]

My family's old CRT TV (quite expensive and top-end at the time) died after a good 17 years of use. It just burned out one day, you could smell smoke from the interior. In hindsight, it was really overheating, we never dusted it out. It worked fine until the day of the failure.

Compare that to the new 55'' LCD TV which already has (worsening) screen artifacts after only 2 years. Good thing 4K TVs are so close to mass-market appeal.

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

There not florescent, there CCFL'S

 

[who?]

There not florescent, there CCFL'S

CCFL stands for cold cathode fluorescent lamp.

 

[sm625]

There are very few LCD monitors that are more than 10 years old. Before 2005, you had to drop a grand for a nice 19" (or less) LCD. But at my company there are about 30 monitors from 2005/2006. And afaik none of them have died due to their tubes burning out. (They look terrible; I wouldnt take them even if they were free.) Usually the power supply dies, or it wont even turn on at all. (ie the power light wont come on.) Personally I've only seen one display where the backlight was burned out, and it was only 2 years old when it happened.