Monitor behaving oddly

[HairyHeretic]

So, I have an old Acer monitor that has worked without a hitch for years (maybe 10+ years at this point). In the last couple of days it's started intermittently behaving oddly.

When I power my machine up it seems to effectively get no signal (though it doesn't display the no signal message) and after a few seconds goes into standby. Turning it off and on at the power button doesn't help, but unplugging the power cord from the back for a few seconds and plugging it back in seems to do the trick, and it then picks up the signal from the PC.

Any idea if this is something that can be fixed permanently, or is it just the monitor starting to give up the ghost? From its age, I don't discount that as a possibility.

[Oniya]

Mr. Oniya had a similar problem a while back - I couldn't sort it out and we ended up taking it into the shop.  He thinks it was the graphics card.  I'm 90% sure that he's still using the same monitor.

[HairyHeretic]

The graphics card? What was it doing?

Admittedly it's not a huge issue for me, as I said, unplugging the power cord and plugging it back in seems to do the job. I'm trying to think how the graphics card could be doing this, and I'm drawing a blank.

[Oniya]

I'm not sure myself.  He says that they replaced that, and it's been working ever since.  I wasn't able to sort out a likely cause either (and we don't really have a lot of spare bits to swap around.)

If you do have a spare monitor, it might be worth the peace of mind to see if that behaves the same way.

[HairyHeretic]

I'd have to see if I could borrow one.

I'd prefer not to have to do anything with the gfx card. I got my machine from a company in England, and having to send it back to get the card looked at or replaced would be a pain.