Why you NEED a cheap 15" 4:3 LCD monitor 

Oh. My.... That was a video of ME you showed at the end! HA! Can't believe that video is still making the rounds... I need to pick myself up a $2 monitor!

This monitor is what Zac Snyder intended for fans to view the Snyder cut on. The true cinematic experience.

I love how the thrift store classified the camcorder as "furniture". Even they think it's just a paperweight now XD

Lol when the monitor takes longer to boot than your PC

A monitor, no matter how cheap or expensive, is always a nice thing to have. You never know when you'll need it!

If you have a slow starting monitor, you can press the Pause key and most BIOSes will wait until your monitor warms up and you can see the other key prompts.

What I miss the most is a direct access to Brighness and Contrast, sick of those neverending menus

"This monitor might not display BIOS messages." "Hold my beer. Time to jam all the keys and force a keyboard error." 🙂

This man still runs Vista, he fears nothing.

That's one hell of a fuqing monitor you got there.

I used to work in a datacenter and we had these ultra-cheap 15-inch LCD monitors that were super bare-bones. Only VGA and DVI inputs and no power saving features at all which meant that it would instantly display all video from any server without the backlight powering on and off to save energy and hiding boot messages you want to see. They were so handy.

The correct title of this would’ve been “why I need a cheap monitor”

ive gotten like 5 of these from my local charity shop for 50p each, one I want to get is a 1600x1200 one but they're not very common

Thanks for reminding me of when Linus didn’t have a beard.

I'm an analyst for a thrift store that uses tag colors like that. We cycle through one of four different tag colors each week, so that after an item has been on the floor for three weeks, it goes to clearance pricing before we remove it and send it to the salvage outlet. The discounted tag colors simply represent the oldest items on the floor. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but this goes for most normal donated items.

I just got a 19" monitor from a thrift store too, for "utility" purposes. It was $5 because I had a coupon. Here's the important part- there were two monitors there, both Viewsonic, 'looked' like the same monitors. I checked ONE monitor for inputs- VGA and dvi, great! I grabbed the one that was less dusty. Brought it home and realized it only had vga. Spent several minutes (maybe a couple hours) looking for a vga to HDMI adapter because I was sure I had one, cause I got boxes of adapters. I was not going to be defeated, I was not going back to the thrift store either- this is my monitor now and it's going to work. I went to Walmart and bought a $14 adapter. So my $5 monitor became a $19 monitor.

If you need a second monitor, even for modern gaming, these things can be super useful. You can have the game in one monitor and keep other important things open in the other like team chat, gamefaqs, streaming statistics, etc. without having to interfere with your main screen.

We have a bunch of those larger HP ones at work. 15 years of near constantly being powered on and they still have a pretty good picture

A cheap, used <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a> is also a great complement to a modern display for a budget two monitor setup. I have an Eizo FlexScan S1901 which is decent and has a DVI input which I have used while working during lockdown. It really is a productivity boost.

*Windows XP startup sound* I admit, my heart melted there. And I'm a linux user

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="274">4:34</a> Even if "Product of Fuqing China" was not meant to be a joke, it made me cry with laughter.

These videos really don't feel like they are made in 2021, seeing that date on the desktop shocked me even though I know the upload date

Fun Fact: You can use the pause key to freeze most classic BIOSes, allowing you to read messages much more easily

It’s funny seeing how much the change in Linus’ script and presentation is lol

Fuqing is a county-level city of Fujian Province, China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Fuzhou.

Linus: "Because I love hearing the sound of my own voice... ... ..Really?" Practically Everyone: "Really." Another great use for a spare LCD monitor is if you run a headless file server or NAS and want to check in on it locally.

Old <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="304">5:4</a>, 1280x1024 monitors are my favourite. I've been using them for years, and love them! It means subtitles go under the video instead of covering it, allows for better scrolling, and the more square aspect ratio matches a single eye better, and therefore matches HMD screens better, which makes them good for recording VR content. I love <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="304">5:4</a> monitors, and actually do not want to upgrade my monitors to anything newer unless something new comes out also in a <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="304">5:4</a> aspect ratio, because I've actually come to strongly prefer this resolution. Old monitors that are still working today are also often super well-built and reliable, due to having withstood the test of time. If they have lasted until now, they will likely last a long time into the future. According to the manual of my Dell 1907FPVs, they even _drop-tested_ these monitors! Amazing! <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="47">0:47</a>: Wait, you are talking about smaller monitors too, not just the aspect ratio =(O.O)= ?! I am intrigued! The problems with the delay you are talking about sound specific to that specific monitor. My 19" Dell 1907FPVs have no trouble turning on quickly or switching graphics modes. It also uses a standard power cable and can be pushed down to lock in a way that makes it easy to pick up, despite also being super adjustable when unlocked.

Over 25 years ago I used to regularly attend LAN parties friends would setup. I worked in IT hardware support back then and could use our corporate discounts to buy pretty much any kit I wanted, so I used to go to these parties with my gaming rig, a 21" TFT monitor (TFT's were still rare back then, and 21" versions were something few had even seen in person !) and a pair of 16 port network switches. I also had a 1U server that I'd take with to use as a game server. I could have a few games running in tandem on that thing, but whenever someone came up and told me there was a problem with one of the games it was hosting I'd have to drop out of the game I was playing to remote onto the server and investigate. Because of this I eventually got hold of a little 10" TFT "Point of sale" touch screen through work, and had that connected to the server. That thing was brilliant for stuff like quick restarts of the game hosting software and was used for that until the mass adoption of online gaming took over from LAN parties (I still miss those though. They were absolutely awesome get togethers with a whole house full of like minded (And usually equally socially awkward :D) people). That monitor spent the rest of it's days in the back of my van for the rare occasions I needed to do a quick test on customers PC's that were either not outputting video or had a duff monitor. It was outstanding for that as it was robust, took up next to no space, and would quickly prove to customers that the problem WASNT with the PC we'd supplied, and they'd need to contact their monitor suppler instead. I've still got my "Test crate" around here somewhere with a 14" TFT, K/B, mouse, cables, PSU, and several other components to make fault finding a simple process of swapping parts until a PC works again. Used to come in very handy.

I've got "same firmware" monitor from HP, as yours's wide one. Consider trying to enter the full setup menu by holding power button pressed for 20 seconds or so. It should allow you to see the input preference settings and sleep-mode delay menu.

you should crank the refresh rate as high as possible, even if its an lcd. A higher refresh rate, while not affecting flickering, will make the monitor smoother.

Yes, I love these. I love the 1280 x 1024 DVI monitors. Super useful for cheap PC gaming because their PPI is pretty comparable to an HD resolution, so you can get great framerates at Ultra resolution with demanding games and a 780Ti, but Ultra is still actually worth it because the PPI makes Ultra still look beautiful. My preference for these kinds of monitors is NEC. Their monitors of this kind are beautiful in looks, have instant display switching (eliminating the hangtime issue he demonstrates in his video where he misses the BIOS messages), support a wide-range of signals, have DVI-I (instead of the more common DVI-D, which supports fewer video signals) and thanks to their dark grey palette still look plenty modern in design. Monitors like these can be found super cheap or even free, as he states. It's a great deal, which I can already tell is getting harder and harder to find, so definitely pick these up while they're still affordable.

I don't know what I just stumbled upon. But holy crap, being a huge nerd its cool seeing this person talking about these older computer things.

They could be useful for playing older PC games which play in <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a> which will look better than playing on a modern <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="969">16:9</a> monitor which would usually stretch the <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a> image. As a note, HDTVs usually have an aspect ratio option to choose between <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a> and <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="969">16:9</a> so that devices designed for <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a> TVs will be in the correct aspect ratio.

Is this monitor self aware, singing "I am 16 going on 17?"

There is a workaround to see the BIOS screen on the delayed monitor, you can press the Pause|Break key on your keyboard to pause the screen till you see it. Then press the End key on your keyboard to continue the BIOS boot process.

Former goodwill employee here, the price tag colors mark how long an item has been in the store, each color representing a week. The sale color is used to try to get old items out of the store. Usually if an item is not sold within four weeks its sent to a different goodwill location, or recycled.

There was a subtext to those clips at the end. Something subliminal - a common denominator, you could say. I know what it was! Computers! Yes, that was it. Computers..., definitely, computers.

New monitors: "what the hell is this video resolution? I don't see it on the list of resolutions that exist" Old monitors: "Is the horizontal sync frequency over 18KHz? Good, let me push some pixels then" Kinda wish I had one of these so I could screw around and see what the wackiest resolution is that can be displayed

Man seems like everyone can get stuff for dirt cheap at thrift stores everywhere else in the world here in California even for the most ancient of displays you’ll never see less than 25 bucks not to mention the big old plasma displays go for like 150 (at a thrift store)

Liked your content. No nonsense, straight to the point. Useful tests. Keep up

"Q" is pronounced as "ch" sound like "chair"

I love that you use the Zune window theme in XP. I really really miss it and get nostalgic for it, for some reason.

im glad I found this channel it reminds me of my uncle who used to go trifting for old electronics its super comfy

I went down to the Salvation Army store to get one of these a couple years back to use for setting up old PCs, and with the Raspberry PI. They had several, but I spotted a small 17" Phillips TV for only a couple bucks more than the monitors. The thing had HDMI, VGA and composite. A good investment for the workbench.

I have an HP monitor too! You can set VGA as the default input on the 19 inch monitor in the settings

yep, grabbed a similar one but its samsung. I also have an even smaller 13" its kinda cute.

I really appreciate this video. I have a project in the works that'll have me putting up monitors in every room of my house. I thought the screens would be the most expensive part, but I never considered old 00's and 10's monitors would be so cheap, so I'll definitely be checking around local thrift stores for these!

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="8">0:08</a> actually the colour of the price tags are to tell how long the product has been out on the shelf for the colour changes every week and if it’s been on the shelf for a certain amount of time they take it off the shelf to make room for more stuff i guess the thrift store you go to puts a discount on them to try to sell them rather then throwing them out right away but if it still don’t sell with the discount then they probably throw them out I work at a thrift store so that’s how I know :)

I used these as a secondary monitor for years till I gave it to a friend!!!! Great little compontent monitor.

I still have my old 15" LCD I bought back in the day. it's a little scratched up but still works, especially after I recapped the power supply.

Excellent for console gaming and old pc games. Also love the built in speakers with the grills facing forward.

I almost bought a <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a> monitor at a thrift shop for like $5 like two days ago and today I get this video recommended as if to tell me I should have

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="304">5:4</a> is nice too, I used a 17'' one for some years before getting a wide-screen one

The F-word is actually a major city and part of the Fuzhou supercity that you would have heard of.

This is all the tech I need, long may it be findable and functional.

I had a cheap triple-monitor setup with some old XGA monitors. It worked perfectly well. I even managed to play a few games in ultrawide, though the visual fidelity wasn't great.

Not sure what difference 70Hz would make... Somewhere a gamer with a 240Hz LCD monitor just felt a sharp pain in their side.

I got a <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="304">5:4</a> (which is even more square than <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a>) 19" Dell as my second monitor. One of the best monitors I've ever used. And my main is a 22" <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="970">16:10</a> Lenovo ThinkVision display, which is a great monitor (though it's a TN, but not that bad). Both of them are set on 75Hz.

Thanks for the idea. I am always tinkering with single board computers for retrogaming, and a monitor like this will be very helpful on my builder bench.

I never really thought about it, but I suppose you're right about 1280×1024 being a <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="304">5:4</a> apsect ratio. I've gone the last 22 years of using the same monitor thinking it was <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a>

• <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="118">1:58</a> - You should pretty much always be able to spam the [Pause] key during the POST to freeze the system. That should work on practically all systems, including those with UEFI. Then you can rapidly press space/pause to advance little by little. • <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="162">2:42</a> - Ah, the Fullscreen Console Mode, how I miss it. It was possible to install the driver in 32-bit Vista, but not afterwards. • <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="259">4:19</a> - I found this monitor thrown out somewhere; it displayed yellow. I replaced a capacitor to fixed it, then sold it on Kijiji. 😀 • <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="272">4:32</a> - Fuqing = /foo-ching/ • <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="498">8:18</a> - Whew! I thought I was just getting old. 😬 • <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="505">8:25</a> - Ahhhhh! Look how they've massacred by boy DeskMate. 😕 • <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="620">10:20</a> - I guess Linus loves hearing his voice no matter how tinny. 🤷

Had this exact monitor with a really crappy HP prebuilt back in the day.

That screen blur is the stuff nightmares are made of. Quite the striking practical effect.

For a long time I had wanted a second monitor. Then on a thrift store I found a 720p 14"" monitor for $11. I ended up using it to enhance so much productivity. I also used it during quarantine time where My teacher would be teaching whatever and I'd be on a bossfight on my primary monitor. It did its job fully and I don't regret it. It ended up dying last year. By this point I had enough money to buy a modern monitor

I've also heard the "colors" on the price tags are just them cycling through stock. The color on sale is what's been there the longest and they want to get rid of it. Also, all the thrift stores near me have a bunch of monitors like this. I had to recycle a few of them though as they had dead power supplies. But I did get a nice DVI/VGA one that I use to test all my old computers :-) P.S. Check the settings in the monitor, you may be able to set the VGA as the default input (instead of DVI).

I have that monitor and it's pretty nice; I use it mostly with my older Win98 and DOS computers but as you said it's also very handy for just quickly hooking up a PC to test it out or something. The speakers are certainly not great but they're fine for playing games like Duke Nukem.

I have one my grandpa gave, super useful and I love the format to watch older videos that are <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a>, really adorable + free!

I couldn't tell if this video was made yesterday or 5 years ago and I loved it

I think they will become interesting again when retro games from that time become popular. Try to get a 1984 nCommodore today, 10 years ago it was electronic waste. The LED monitors also have a good lifespan, primarily the electrolytic capacitors are broken and the CCFL backlight is getting weaker. But both can be replaced. I converted the backlight of my Thinkpad from CCFL to LED a few years ago and the result was incredibly good.

Fuqing is a county level city of the Fujian Province in China. It's just where the monitor factory is located.

I've been using one of these as a secondary monitor for years and I have to say after switching my system drive to an ssd, this was the second biggest quality of life improvement I have had with my pc.

These work great as second monitors because they fit on your desk easier and they are great for web browsing. I have had to recap a couple of these that failed on me recently. Most of these come from the bad cap era and will need recapped eventually.

There are some caveats to using some of these monitors with modern PCs. I bought a 2004 Samsung 17" <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="304">5:4</a> monitor secondhand this past summer for an older computer I intended to use as a server. I ended up using it as the main display for my main PC, but would have erratic issues -- the monitor would throw a fit and display nothing seemingly at random, even on period-correct hardware, for a reason I can't figure out. This is especially troubling when using the GRUB Bootloader, as the default 640x480 resolution results in a black screen before entering the operating system. It can be remedied easily by changing the display mode to VGA Text, though. I don't have faith that modern graphics hardware is 100% compatible with the signal timing of the LCD, but I am able to bend the monitor's will with weird resolutions through 𝚡𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚛 without an error. My 2007 Dell UltraSharp, which I now use as my daily driver, does not have this issue.

That sony handycam is the exact same model I used to use as a kid to record drag races when I went to the track with my dad. Great little camcorder

I use a similar monitor I still have from my old pc as a second screen for my gaming laptop and it's very handy

I've got the same monitor. It's my go-to for testing PCs. It is light and efficient for me. I also like the XP era styling, it's so contoured. Picking it up is pleasant. I got it for about $4 in 2016. Still very useful for what I need it for.

Pretty good for a semi-portable testbench monitor that you'll be moving around constantly between systems and desks. I wonder what other uses could it have. An entire small form factor retro gaming setup?

I used to have that same HP monitor. They often came in a packaged HP computer system. Mine ended up at, you guessed it, Goodwill when I upgraded to a wide screen display.

Few days ago, while I was taking my dog for a walk, I found an abandon AOC 17 inch TFT monitor, in very good shape, with built in speakers. The only thing that was missing, was the external power adapter (which by the way, only my new monitor has the same feature), but it works! I cleaned it and I will buy a new power adapter and is ready for use!

Just a thought (on the 19inch).. I have a similar monitor that has DVI and VGA input, and it has a setting in the OSD that allows you select which input it defaults to. It may be something built into yours as well, but it seems like you would have found that based on your knowlege. Anyway, enjoyed the video. I too love having extra monitors laying around for testing equipment. Have a great day!

Just donated one of these to the thrift store. The contrast ratio just looked so bad compared to a modern IPS lcd that I couldn't see using it anymore.

Oh man, that HP monitor you have was my very first non-CRT monitor. I had that thing for more years than I can count until it finally gave out.

I have the exact same 19 inch monitor you got and one thing that you might find interesting is it's refresh rate, I think I got mine up to like 100-110 hz easily, I wish I had it on hand right now to make sure but I remember that is surprised me in that regard.

I still have this exact monitor from 2002, and I'm using it!!

I bought this same monitor at a thrift store about 6 years ago for $10.00 for the same reason. I could move this from room to room which I could not with the 17" Sony Trinitron I had back then.

I plan to use 2 <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a> monitors as lateral view of my triple screen setup, with a <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="969">16:9</a> in the center. Why? Because using 3 <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="969">16:9</a> makes the items on the farest edges of the screen too far to comfortable seeing them, and a <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="969">16:9</a> in the center is perfect for programs videos that work best in <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="969">16:9</a>. I plan to use a Maxtor Triplehead2go to expand gaming to the 2 lateral monitors.

I love this! My dad actually has this monitor in his office still! I used to use this with our family computer all the time. ...I should ask him if I can have it

I’ve had one of these for years. It’s the Compaq version of this HP that came with our old Presario.

I love <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="61">1:1</a> and <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a> monitors, classy.

we have those exact HP monitors at work and tbh i never noticed they were that bad! ours let you chose VGA as standard as well! may be some regional differences? i am in europe...

Now you're making me miss playing AoE2 on my grandma's windows 95 Compaq PC. I feel old.

That's why I still have my 2 NECs I bought brand new. They sure come in handy.

"Fuqing" is actually a city in China. It's pronounced kind of like "foo ching"

I got one that's a Dell, I use it as the head for my server.

fantastic video thank you!

I still use a MAE branded square LCD monitor with my MacBook Pro. It’s great for shoving RU-vid videos or reference material on while I use the MacBook screen for other things. I bought it at a tag sale my high school had for $4. It was manufactured in 2004 and still works just fine. I’ve been out of high school for 4 years now and have had no issues with this screen.

Do you know how many camcorders you have? <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="153">2:33</a> It's just switching between resolutions, which especially older games do quite often. The monitor doesn't know whether it's a text mode or a graphics mode, it's just different resolutions. (Also it's not a DOS prompt, just a command line, but I'm sure you know😁) I have an hp 15" 1024x768 LCD from 2002 which even has a DVI input. That's quite rare for a monitor with such a low resolution; and in 2002 hardly anyone used DVI.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="277">4:37</a> LOL - apparently it's a Chinese coastal city

I got one of the old dell 15 inch <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="243">4:3</a> monitors. I don't have a lot of space and it is lovely for me!

Hey! I have this exact monitor, pulled it from the trash about 6 years back. Works nice to this day!