This morning I came down to breakfast and Jeanine greeted me with those 4 words I live for.

My computer isn’t working!

This is right up there with,

The dog ate your new soccer shoes!

The LCD monitor was dark and the CPU was on. Begin troubleshooting. Monitor or CPU? Monitor fails to display internal menu ruling out CPU. Close inspection of screen in bright sunlight reveals pixels present but backlighting is absent implicating either high voltage inverter or CCFL lamps. Disassemble monitor, locate inverter, power on, check for high voltage (absent), check for low voltage input (present) implicating inverter. Remove inverter, notice burn marks on back side of insulator, map burn marks to components, identifying switching transistors U1 and U3, check diode voltage drops, both are open implicating these two devices. Quick check on the Internet and they are available for three dollars a piece. With any luck I will salvage the monitor for $6 and 20 minutes of effort. Pictured here is the inverter board. Maya says it looks like a miniature city.