So here's the story -
Black Friday, 2008. Found some 22" widescreen monitors for $100 at Frys Electronics. Bought two of 'em.
Now, 6 months in, they are both dying.
I've done recaps of 5 or 6 monitors before. I had all the parts and I did a full recap of the board, even though it's only 6 months in and I didn't really think they'd be bad. It's fairly cheap to do, so I did it anyway.
Didn't help. After recapping it, the monitor went about 2 days and then started exhibiting the same symptoms as before.
The symptoms:
The monitor that's going out faster constantly makes this horrific noise. It has a really high-pitched whine, along with a really nasty crunchy sound like fluorescent tubes make when they're first starting - but the noise never stops.
After a while, it will start flickering - maybe a flicker every 1/2 second - for a total of about a minute. Then it will resume making its death rattle.
The second monitor makes the noise, but to a lesser degree.
One thing that's interesting about the flicker - it reduces in brightness, it doesn't go out. It seems as if maybe just the bottom backlights turn off.
Diagnoses:
I've recapped the board, and it didn't help. Sometimes the monitor stops making the noise for a day or two, so it could've been coincidence that it didn't make the noise after the recap.
I tried reducing the brightness (I had them on 100 up until about 2 weeks ago, now they're both on 50) and the problem still remains. I put the one that is dying faster down to 0 brightness, and it stopped the noise for the most part (if it's making the noise, lowering the brightness makes the noise quiet and sometimes quit altogether) but it still flickered. However, the half-brightness state that the flicker goes to and from is only slightly darker than the monitor at 0 brightness, so you can still see it flicker, but you wouldn't notice it out of your peripheral vision or anything. It's more slight.
Anyway, I'm new here and I'm not sure what kind of other diagnoses it might be good to do. Feel free to tell me to RTFM, but please let me know where TFM is located, as I haven't found a detailed way to diagnose this issue. It doesn't go direct-to-black as the other monitors I've repaired did, and it's also not very old. So I'm a bit lost.
I'll be happy to provide more detailed information and pictures upon request, don't have any now and I have to get going, but I can post 'em later, just let me know what to point at. The circuit's really simple, the simplest I've personally seen in an LCD.
Anyway, it'd be nice to get these two babies fixed. I don't want to be forced to be in the market for some new monitors, and I've seen reports from other people online about these monitors going out. And they weren't refurbished either, they were regular $229 monitors that were marked down just for the one shopping day, so I'm surprised they're dying. They have no dead pixels at all and look pretty decent (TN panels of course, though.) Occasionally a pixel will get stuck and will take a 1-2 second massage to unstick, but other than that, and the fact that they're dying after 6 months, they're great
Thanks in advance for any help/insight y'all can offer.
Black Friday, 2008. Found some 22" widescreen monitors for $100 at Frys Electronics. Bought two of 'em.
Now, 6 months in, they are both dying.
I've done recaps of 5 or 6 monitors before. I had all the parts and I did a full recap of the board, even though it's only 6 months in and I didn't really think they'd be bad. It's fairly cheap to do, so I did it anyway.
Didn't help. After recapping it, the monitor went about 2 days and then started exhibiting the same symptoms as before.
The symptoms:
The monitor that's going out faster constantly makes this horrific noise. It has a really high-pitched whine, along with a really nasty crunchy sound like fluorescent tubes make when they're first starting - but the noise never stops.
After a while, it will start flickering - maybe a flicker every 1/2 second - for a total of about a minute. Then it will resume making its death rattle.
The second monitor makes the noise, but to a lesser degree.
One thing that's interesting about the flicker - it reduces in brightness, it doesn't go out. It seems as if maybe just the bottom backlights turn off.
Diagnoses:
I've recapped the board, and it didn't help. Sometimes the monitor stops making the noise for a day or two, so it could've been coincidence that it didn't make the noise after the recap.
I tried reducing the brightness (I had them on 100 up until about 2 weeks ago, now they're both on 50) and the problem still remains. I put the one that is dying faster down to 0 brightness, and it stopped the noise for the most part (if it's making the noise, lowering the brightness makes the noise quiet and sometimes quit altogether) but it still flickered. However, the half-brightness state that the flicker goes to and from is only slightly darker than the monitor at 0 brightness, so you can still see it flicker, but you wouldn't notice it out of your peripheral vision or anything. It's more slight.
Anyway, I'm new here and I'm not sure what kind of other diagnoses it might be good to do. Feel free to tell me to RTFM, but please let me know where TFM is located, as I haven't found a detailed way to diagnose this issue. It doesn't go direct-to-black as the other monitors I've repaired did, and it's also not very old. So I'm a bit lost.
I'll be happy to provide more detailed information and pictures upon request, don't have any now and I have to get going, but I can post 'em later, just let me know what to point at. The circuit's really simple, the simplest I've personally seen in an LCD.
Anyway, it'd be nice to get these two babies fixed. I don't want to be forced to be in the market for some new monitors, and I've seen reports from other people online about these monitors going out. And they weren't refurbished either, they were regular $229 monitors that were marked down just for the one shopping day, so I'm surprised they're dying. They have no dead pixels at all and look pretty decent (TN panels of course, though.) Occasionally a pixel will get stuck and will take a 1-2 second massage to unstick, but other than that, and the fact that they're dying after 6 months, they're great
Thanks in advance for any help/insight y'all can offer.
)
id like my 100$ monitor back. has anyone been able to locate a new controller unit or psu for this monitor?
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