Samsung 223BW LCD

[Heihachi_73]

My latest victim, a Samsung 223BW LS22MEVSFV/XSA from June 2007. With everyone's favorite caps, of course.

This morning the monitor decided to not even bother coming on, despite being 9°C inside the house. For the last few weeks I had noticed some barely visible fuzzy lines on the odd occasion but nothing out of the ordinary - my previous monitor used to have trouble just turning on when its caps went.

As usual for most electronics this side of the 1990s, the main board is very good quality whereas the power supply is cheap and nasty.

Anyway, after disassembling it I found that not just one or two caps, but the entire batch of large CapXon caps on the power supply PCB had failed, with one of them venting.

Time to get this one back in service as I don't have any other decent LCDs left - I am currently using an 1280x1024 LG Flatron L1710M from 2004 because it was either that or a CRT, and I would rather stay this side of the year 2000!

Anyway, here's a list of the electrolytic caps on the power supply, which is an IP-43130A, datecode 0722.
C105 JH CD266 100uF 450V 105°C
C107 CapXon KM 47uF 50V 105°C
C111 CapXon GL 820uF 25V 105°C BULGED
C112 CapXon GL 820uF 25V 105°C BULGED
C113 CapXon GL 330uF 25V 105°C BULGED
C114 CapXon GL 820uF 25V 105°C BULGED
C118 CapXon GL 2.2uF 50V 105°C
C316 CapXon GL 820uF 25V 105°C BULGED
C317 CapXon GL 820uF 25V 105°C BULGED
C318 CapXon GL 22uF 50V 105°C

As for the rest that aren't bulged, I don't trust those either after what happened to my previous monitor.

[Heihachi_73]

Re: Samsung 223BW LCD

Monitor has since been recapped with what I had at the time, a bunch of 25V Rubycon YKs and a single off-brand (TL brand) pulled from scrap PCBs, the TL was installed in a less busy area, hopefully with less heat (C317). I didn't have any 820uF of anything whatsoever so 1000uF had to do. Monitor is working again and no longer has any fuzzy lines either.

The small caps have been left in place for now, although I will replace them if anything weird starts happening. Apologies for poor quality PCB photo, the component IDs aren't really visible in the image (photo is a "before" pic, I never thought to take an "after" pic).

[CapLeaker]

Re: Samsung 223BW LCD

9°C inside the house? I am a Canadian but, that's too cold for me.

[Heihachi_73]

Re: Samsung 223BW LCD

Yeah, Australian houses are stupid, up to the mid-80s things such as insulation and air conditioning were optional extras (never mind the annoying hot days in summer with northwesterly winds coming straight from the desert and the accompanying 40°C+ with it), so the temperature is usually within a few degrees of the outside temperature. This one was built in 1968 and may have once had insulation, but if it did exist it was probably asbestos and ripped out 30+ years ago when the substance was banned.

[Heihachi_73]

Blast from the past! Guess what failed last night. Yep, the TL in the middle of the board, and it took out the Rubycon next to it which was in parallel. Still, with the thing being able to last 7 years with second hand caps I'm not complaining. Monitor has already been re-recapped using a Nippon Chemi-Con 2200µF 25V from 1981(!!!), it was the only thing I had even remotely compatible with the two in the middle, I really didn't want to string a bunch of 470s together as I'm out of 25V caps in my pile of spare parts. As there was no room for it to fit vertically it's lying on its side next to the mains cap courtesy of some hot glue. The four Rubycons in the corner all tested fine. If the monitor lasts more than a month with a 44-year-old 85°C cap I'll be surprised, but no loss if it does fail. Not many people are rocking a 1680x1050 PC monitor in 2025, everything's 16:9 or even 21:9 these days courtesy of Hollywood (I still miss the good old 4:3 aspect ratio for PCs, but not 5:4 1280x1024 though, ugh).

[CapLeaker]

I am surprised that the backlight is still working. Hopefully you fixed the 9C part in the house.

[momaka]

Blast from the past! Guess what failed last night. Yep, the TL in the middle of the board, and it took out the Rubycon next to it which was in parallel. Still, with the thing being able to last 7 years with second hand caps I'm not complaining.

Heh, good too see back another old-time BCN member here.
And even better to see/read a follow-up.
Not surprised that crappy TL cap failed while the other Rubycons are still OK, despite being 85C GP caps - goes to show how much better the old Japanese caps are.

I love "scrap" repairs like this.
Did something similar on a Samsung Syncmaster 19" LCD a few years back, using some Nichicon VR (85C caps) from a scrap CRT TV board. Brought the monitor back to life and one of my nephew took it for use with a desktop PC for school work. The monitor was a freebie from the dumpster, so no complaints on my side.

Not many people are rocking a 1680x1050 PC monitor in 2025

I am!
They are practically free here... or nearly so ($1-2 max), regardless of the condition, especially 19" and smaller screens. The 22"s are a little more rare, but still can be found.
I don't mind the lower resolutions - it's easier on the eyes and can view/read the monitor from much further away than 2k/4k screens.
I also don't mind the 5:4 screens either - these are even better for text reading and office work, due to having more vertical space relative to their horizontal resolution. Also, they are the next best thing for retro (late 90's / early 2000's) gaming after CRTs, since widescreen monitors with old games tend to look rather weird (the old games' FOV/field-of-view was simply not done for widescreen.)
Now that it's getting hotter in these parts of the world, I'm switching (again) my CRTs for the LCDs (come Winter / late fall, and I do it all over again in the reverse order.)
Speaking of which, I'm also curious to know if you got that situation with your home insulation taken care of.
The apartment where I live right now is super-comfortable in terms of temperatures - I almost never run the heating in the winter, despite temps dropping well below freezing December - February. Good insulation + thick concrete walls + large windows facing South keeps room temperatures pretty comfy. In the summer, it can get a little hot, but it's not terrible - about 30C inside when outside temps go up to 35-40C... that's without an A/C.

[redwire]

I recently replaced the CCFL backlight tubes in my Samsung 226BW. Don't laugh - but for many years the BL has been misbehaving, flicker bright/dim out so I'd bought the tubes. When it finally died I took it apart changed them out.
Surprisingly it has dual tubes at the top and bottom, for 4 total and they seem to be in parallel pairs. I found one had cracked and gone open circuit, don't know when because these tubes make a loud POP if you break them.
It's working much better now, brighter colour temp nice and white etc. but the BL will go out if it's hot and brightness is turned up. Sigh. So I'm running it at lower brightness until I can find out what heats up and turns off the BL.

[CapLeaker]

I recently replaced the CCFL backlight tubes in my Samsung 226BW. Don't laugh - but for many years the BL has been misbehaving, flicker bright/dim out so I'd bought the tubes. When it finally died I took it apart changed them out.
Surprisingly it has dual tubes at the top and bottom, for 4 total and they seem to be in parallel pairs. I found one had cracked and gone open circuit, don't know when because these tubes make a loud POP if you break them.
It's working much better now, brighter colour temp nice and white etc. but the BL will go out if it's hot and brightness is turned up. Sigh. So I'm running it at lower brightness until I can find out what heats up and turns off the BL.

I had one of these too… but I passed mine down to my son and he is still rocking it.

[momaka]

So I'm running it at lower brightness until I can find out what heats up and turns off the BL.

Probably better for your eyes anyways, especially at night.
I personally find most LCD monitors way too bright and often keep the backlight levels at 50% or less. I think I have only a few very old and tired LCDs where I have to keep the BL levels turned up to be able to see anything.