Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

[OriginalGeek]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Also had the PSC board with the solder fracture at the "cap" (Actually, I think it's a resistor) and numerous other cold solder joints. Now working nicely.

THANKS Y'ALL!

[essejlc]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Just another owner of a 10 year old U3011 suffering the same symptoms reporting that re-soldering the grey cap did the trick! I desoldered the joints using a solder-sucker, cleaned the contacts, and re-soldered it fresh. I inspected all the other through-hole joints on the board and they all looked pretty good, so I left them alone. Thank you internet!

[k3for]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Yup, my Dell U3011 was going screen-dark, and soldering the grey cap last night fixed a hairline crack in the joint on the back of the board!.

Be careful - I had undone a few too many screws taking off the RF shield, and the grounding straps sprung against the DVI and USB ports had fallen loose - luckily I heard them rattling around inside (after I had already buttoned up the bezel unfortunately), but at least I went back in and fixed them to prevent a short!

[maxslo]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Same here, my trusty ol U3011T had started going blank from time to time.
I could get it to stay on by turning the brightness to 0 and keep constrast at 50.

Today i've decided to give this a try and I too have found that exact capacitor having a broken connection, a couple of minutes and a generous application application of solder later, the monitor is purring happily at 100% brightness

So glad it could be saved, nothing beats the IO compatibility on this monitor ..
And it also doubles up as a heater in the winter :P

[TTX]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

A big thank you for this thread! My U3011 had just started going blank occasionally, and on inspection also had the same broken solder joint. Hopefully fixed now!

[Inout Nirvana]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

I think the power board is about $100, definitely not cheap. And since the monitor backlight is CFL not LED the power consumption is on the high side. Plus technology over the last 10 years....

I'm not inept, but I don't have the experience to diagnose reliably. A multimeter and soldering equipment is only part of the puzzle.

I may find someone to sell the non-operating monitor.

I'll probably do a double monitor upgrade or see if an ultrawide works for me. Depends on the type of computer work I'll be doing.

[Kulchick]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Still haven't fixed it yet. Was hoping somebody here will give me a hint what to check, but at this point I may just re-solder anything which looks remotely suspicious.
I also already got a 32" 4K Samsung open box on sale for ~275 and am extremely happy with it. One issue I have with fixing the Dell is that buying power board is too expensive, and also power consumption is too high, lots of wasted energy costs there over time.

[Inout Nirvana]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Plexus:
Is your monitor still working?

I have a pair of Dell 3011 monitors. This morning I switched on the power to my laptop, docking station, and both monitors via a power surge protector switch. I heard a loud electrical pop or crackling sound from behind one of my monitors. Now there is no power to the one monitor, no lights, no power at the ports, nothing.

I'm debating if I can diagnose and fix it...seems like it might be a power supply board? Replace it? Or I'm better off selling it and buying another U3011. Or sell both and upgrade the pair.

Any thoughts?

[plexus]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Hi all. Thanks for this forum and thread. My U3011 was also shutting off/on after over 10 years of use. I used the instructions in this therad to disassemble and repair (I hope) my U3011.

When I removed the bezel, I had to remove the screw holding the power switch assembly in place because I couldn't get the flatflex out from under the monitor. But otehrwise the disassembly went well.

My teqchnique for checking for cracked through-hole solder joints is to place a finger on the solder side on the pins and then wiggle the component - if I can feel movement on the pins then there is cracking. Doing this I found the AC power connector and 2 large electrolytics had cracked joints! I decided to put the effort into touching up ALL the through-hole joints on the PSU. Doing this I noticed even more suspect joints so I was happy to put this effort in.

Re-assembly and now the monitor has been on for 2 hours with no shut down. So, I think it's fixed. I'll update after a longer track record.

Thanks for the help!

[Topcat]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Here are the pictures of my board. https://imgur.com/gallery/rlUS9en

Please attach your pics to the forum, or your posts will be removed. Outside image sources are not allowed.

[Kulchick]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Pictures of my board

[Kulchick]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Hi everyone. Another person with u3011 here. Mine was working without issues. Then it was not used for a few month while the computer was connected to a TV. Few days ago I tried to plug it back in and I get absolutely no reaction - will not power on, no blue lights.
Tried to do some simple troubleshooting and looks like I have no 5V DC or +24V DC coming out of the board at all. Visual inspection failed to find anything suspicious. Tryed to jiggle some components as well. Fuse is good and I do have voltage on high voltage side of the board, large capacitor reads about 384V AC. At the same time computer does detect it as monitor correctly in video settings.
Any advice on in which direction should I look?

[jondaddio]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

THIS THREAD IS AWESOME !!!

I had my Dell U3011 cutting in and out randomly for the past several weeks just as described earlier in this long thread. I guess I've been lucky to have it be solid this long (since about 2009). I took my monitor apart today, found the suspect capacitor soldering (which was subtle, but just like the photos in this thread), re-soldered those two PCB connections, and so far (knock on wood) my monitor is back in business without the frequent power dropouts, which were making it completely unusable.

The photos and descriptions on how to take the bezel off and identifying the board were dead on. Got it apart, soldered, and tested within a couple of hours with the help of my daughter in steadying it to protect the button cable and provide a second set of hands.

I still don't know who figured out which part (that capacitor in the center of the power supply board) had the suspect cold solder joints to re-solder, but KUDOS to that person. This is a story that makes the internet amazing, and is keeping a lot of monitors out of the landfill.

(Hopefully I have not jinxed myself.)

Cheers to all !!!

[Per Hansson]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Whenever you see a ring in the solder, or put another way a color shift with a ring between, then you have a bad joint.
I marked some rings in one of the pics you uploaded now and attached it here.
It looks infact like this other monitor has "reflowed" that same joint you fixed on the other monitor.
If you fix it I would check the temperature at that spot with a Flir thermal imager or other similar device, maybe the unit needs a cooling fan...

[blankdisplay]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Ok hello all and thanks all for this forum you people are fantastic, love this kind of stuff on the internet.

So good news, bad news!!
Yesterdays pics - that monitor SEEMS TO BE FIXED
https://photos.app.goo.gl/wCtm6J97EFSAVEFp7

It was really hard to see - but there's the heat stress crack in the solder and I've re-done it and my 'really bad' monitor - seems to be perfect, wife will test it over the coming days while WFH.



Bad news:
My 'good' monitor which only flakes out, occassionally, that same solder point unfortunately looks flawless? I'm going to re-solder the joints of the known fault anyhow - but who knows? (it's the identical, 'blank out screen randomly' fault)

Here is another batch of a heap of pics for the second power board.
https://imgur.com/a/AT7pdRN
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/h5oibyfbh...cKCMGSJFa?dl=0
Again to be clear that's a second monitor and a second batch of pics, the post above is, as far as I can tell, no longer needed.

Anyone who can help, thank you, really appreciate it.

[blankdisplay]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Ok here's the dump of pics, I do hope they're good enough.

To be clear I'm having the same old 'monitor goes blank' issue where the light remains blue but the screen just goes dark - and it works most of the time but it's slowly getting worse


https://www.dropbox.com/sh/60aeb9xcg...QCKRrLCxa?dl=0

Also gallery here, if you don't like dropbox!
https://imgur.com/a/RTwwjWv

Final thing - the very bottom, took some snaps in diff lighting - bright sunlight

[blankdisplay]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

I signed up to say thanks for this tip! It worked for me, too.

Here's a shot of my joints before I re-soldered them:

Buddy thank you very much - I'm going to take a crack at this !

EDIT:
Sadly, my joints at this location look much much better than yours, so I'm about to dump a whole heap of images. I really hope someone can help

[nop]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Fix broken solder joints of gray rectangular capacitor near the center of PCU board. It worked for me and for some another guy.

I signed up to say thanks for this tip! It worked for me, too.

Here's a shot of my joints before I re-soldered them:

[jschilberg]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

Fix broken solder joints of gray rectangular capacitor near the center of PCU board. It worked for me and for some another guy.

I did the same thing. I found a hairline crack on one of the capacitor leads. Re-soldered the connection, and it's up and running!

Thanks for the suggestion!

[rundll.exe]

Re: Dell U3011 no display after a few minutes

And from me too a big thanks for all helpfull information here!

Mine also died after a few seconds and I had to pull the plug to try again.

In the end it wasn't the grey rectangular cap that was bad (I resoldered it first).
But when I was feeling the heat from one of the center aluminum plates, it was heating up much faster than the others, and I could hardly touch it after 15 sec of on-time!

However I had no idea what kind of IC was underneath.

Some searching led me to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87lseu0UlVk (watch with CC-translation)

I could see him unpacking this component at 39 sec
https://www.digikey.com/product-deta...3-5-ND/2256089
I seems to be some kind of AC/DC converter. The video also is a nice guide for how to quickly replace this component!

I replaced that one, applied new thermal paste, and so far it holds up!