My $150 monitor arm let go and took my display with it

Last Tuesday I was just grabbing my coffee mug and the whole gas spring gave out on my 2 year old arm. The monitor face planted into my desk and now there's a dead pixel cluster right in the center of the screen. I ended up grabbing an old laptop stand from a box in the closet to keep working. Anyone else had a sudden hardware failure mess up their whole setup out of nowhere?

2 comments

2 Comments

tyler_baker23d ago

man honestly I kinda disagree here. like yeah it sucks your monitor broke but you got two full years out of a gas spring arm and they are basically disposable at that price point. those things have a limited lifespan no matter what you pay. I had a $50 arm for four years and it never failed because I wasn't putting a heavy monitor on it or jerking it around. most of the time when these fail it's user error or just bad luck not a product flaw. your desk setup probably wasn't stable enough either if a mug grab made it tip. maybe next time mount it to a stud or get a heavier base plate.

leebrown23d ago

My cousin had a similar thing happen with a gas spring arm back in 2019 and it took out his whole coffee mug and cracked his phone screen too. He swore off gas springs entirely after that and went back to a fixed arm, which has held up fine for like five years now with a 27-inch monitor on it. In my experience the trade-off with gas springs is you get adjustability but you're basically gambling on when that cylinder is gonna give out.