Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

[Saxifrage]

Hello everyone,

I have experienced this "2 seconds to black" problem on my Acer AL2216W monitor a while ago and found this forum among the google search results.

It took me a few weeks to find enough courage to open my monitor and look inside. I had tinkered with my PC when I was much younger but I had never opened a monitor and so I was a bit scared.

But everything went ok and so here are the pictures.

To any expert who reads this, I am totally unable to see anything of interest in the pictures, so if you can, please express yourself

If the solution involves replacing bad capacitors (the website is called badcaps after all), I must admit that I don't feel quite up to the task. I don't have a soldering iron and have never used one. I am not sure I can manage to do this properly. And so I am more inclined to buy a new power supply board (or is that a mistake?).

I had a look on ebay and I found a few but it's very misleading. Mine says clearly DAC-19M009, but there's none of that type on ebay. There's a few DAC-19M010 here and there but would they work with my monitor?

Also, another website shipping these boards from mainland China shows products that seem to replace the whole family of DAC-19M0XX boards. I mean you can't buy specifically a DAC-19M009 on that website, or even a DAC-19M010, but you need to trust their "one-size-fits-all" product to replace whichever one you've got.
Does that sound familiar to anyone?
Could I replace my DAC-19M009 with another one, and if yes which types are compatible?

That's a lot of questions, sorry but I'm absolutely new to this field...

Thanks a lot for your attention!

Cheers

[selldoor]

Re: Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

This might sound harsh but If you dont have a soldering iron and cant even be bothered to dust your boards down before photographing I think you are wasting your time -and ours.
Assuming you have read the "sticky" guide to 2 seconds to black at the top of this forum you can see the many tests involved in establishing possible cause.
Without doing the tests we cannot tell you what might be wrong but if you simply want to swap out boards in the hope that the problem is not with the bulbs then ask
the seller of the board if it will replace the one you have- email them a picture and a close up of the board label area.
There does appear to be some bulging to some of the caps but its not always easy to tell.

[Saxifrage]

Re: Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

It does sound harsh.

Can't be bothered to dust my board? Well if I knew I had to, I would have... I actually only noticed the dust on the pictures after I had closed the monitor (not to let it open with parts everywhere in a room where kids, pets could wreak havoc) but I didn't know it was such a problem. I couldn't even suspect it would be considered bad etiquette not to dust it. I guess it would be worth mentioning in either the 2 seconds to black guide or even the photos guide. And did I mention it was the first time I ever opened a monitor?

Sorry to waste your time though. I'm merely looking for help. I'm totally new at this and I hope that simple fact does not mean I'm wasting your time.

More to the point, I guess I was hoping the pictures would be good enough to have some comments, or the beginning of a solution, because I'm really not sure if I can run the tests listed in the sticky guide - not to mention I have neither soldering iron, as you have pointed out, nor a multimeter. I am not a skilled electrician or engineer of any sort and have no such equipment or knowledge. I have a strong willingness to learn though.

How do I check if the problem is with the bulbs? I did not see any mention of bulbs in the guide.

Thanks and sorry again for your time.

(and don't worry about mine: as long as I'm learning, I'm confident it is not wasted at all )

[Lumberjack777]

Re: Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

It looks like you definitely have 3 bulging caps. They might all 3 be the same type according to your picture. And all 3 are bad.
You need to find a friend that can solder in 3 new capacitors in the area I circled in red. You can also replace all the capacitors. But definitely replace those 3.

[Saxifrage]

Re: Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

Brilliant!

Thank you so much!

[budm]

Re: Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

You can ask your local repair shop to install the proper caps (low ESR, 105c rating) for you.

[Saxifrage]

Re: Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

Thank you.

I have posted a message to my friends to find a soldering iron and if possible some help with the actual job. If nobody jumps to my rescue then I'll just go to the repair shop as you suggested.

And I'll order the capacitors now.

Thanks!

[Saxifrage]

Re: Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

I have found the following guide to "repairing soldered connections" and it doesn't look so fiendishly difficult after all : http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repairin...onnections/750

Does this look like a proper guide to you all?

(well there's of course the badcaps guides, for example https://www.badcaps.net/pages.php?vid=32 , which I will follow as well, should I decide to do this myself)

[Lumberjack777]

Re: Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

Soldering isn't terribly difficult at all. You just need to take your time and do it right.
With those capacitors; you need to be sure you put them in the right way. They have polarity + and -
Here's a great video on soldering. Credit to Retiredcaps for finding it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_NU2ruzyc4

[Saxifrage]

Re: Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

Hi everyone,

Some news from this Acer AL2216W monitor.

I replaced the board with a brand new one and...

The display went completely white when switched on and plugged to the computer.

So I opened the monitor again and checked all connectors, cleaned them (saw the "eraser trick" on youtube), verified that they were all completely pushed in, closed the monitor again, plugged it to the mains and...

The monitor went flashing white, back to black, white again, repeating this indefinitely while the green power LED kept blinking.

I read that this could mean a "failure of the power supply"...

Just to check, I opened again, replaced the new board with the old - the one that used to go 2 seconds to black - and tried to power up the monitor again: failure. Won't even switch on at all. No power LED, nothing.

I tried the new board again, checking all connectors, looking for swollen capacitors (apparently none), taking pictures (see below), but it is still flashing white and black with power LED green and blinking...

I feel so dumb now. Did I damage something while I replaced the board or when I cleaned the connectors? Or was the new board defective?

Or is there a problem elsewhere maybe...?

I'm really clueless. Any leads would help.

Thanks guys

[selldoor]

Re: Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

One of the cable to the panel is not seated as far in as the other one.
There is a small white fuse on the main board just by the connector to the
power supply. Can you test that. Also look for other fuses.
When it is all on and flashing can you get at that fuse and test the voltage on it
relative to ground.Does it vary when the screen changes?

[Saxifrage]

Re: Acer AL2216W - 2 seconds to black

Many thanks for your reply.

I did push all the cables in to the maximum and I noticed that this one looked like is was not pushed as much as the other one... but it can't be pushed any further nonetheless. Just to be sure I'll give it another try tonight. I did read it could be the cause of the white screen so I checked it really carefully but who knows, I may have made a mistake somewhere.

I will also test the fuse, thanks. Just out of curiosity, what is it I'm looking for exactly (what does it mean if it varies or not)?

Thank you!