Response from Jonathan: Dennis,

Your issue sounds exactly like what we discuss in our post on TroubleshootingGames That Are Playing Blind. The sound your son heard was probably caused by some electronic parts failing on the monitor chassis (could be your flyback, HOT (Horizontal Output Transistor), etc.). While our post doesn’t mention everything that could go wrong with your monitor, it does give you some great tips on the parts that are known to fail from time to time. It’s definitely a great place to start if you want to try and repair this issue yourself.

So, let’s talk about what the repair would cost if you get someone to fix it for you. You’re probably looking somewhere between $150-250 if you were to ship the monitor chassis off to one of the people we recommend under Monitor Repair Services & Information heading on our resources page. Keep in mind that if you go this route or the fix it yourself route, you will need to discharge the monitor and remove the chassis in order to ship it off or work on it.

Now, the repair will probably cost more (around an additional $100-200 or so on top of the $150-250 we discussed earlier) if someone comes out to your house to fix the issue. Some repair guys don’t fool with fixing old monitors so they might recommend replacing it with a newer LCD monitor. You can go that route but it’s probably going to cost more to do it ($600 or so installed). The comparable replacement LCD from Wells Gardner costs around $450 and I’m sure they will charge you some for installation.

Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.