Monitor just cut out

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Soldato
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I think one of my monitors might have just died :(
I turned it on this morning, it worked for about a minute before just flickering and now there's no picture. Its a Samsung Syncmaster 2253LW bought back in September 2008.

The power light is on, but there's no backlight. However, the computer still thinks there is a monitor attached, because I can move the mouse over onto the monitor, and if I remove the DVI cable then the main monitor jumps about a bit as it shifts everything back onto the one single monitor.

I assume its a backlight issue since the power light is on, but none of the menu and things like that are working, but I have no idea how to be sure.

Is this something easily replacable? Or is it time to go shopping for a new one?
 
Probably an issue with the power board. Sounds very like an issue I've had on my Viewsonic monitors (Both the same model, so must be a design fault). In my case, opening up the monitor & finding the power board was fairly easy, once found, I replaced all the dead capacitors on the board (the bulging ones) with ones of atleast the same quality (think they all ended up being rated to a higher temperature (105 rather than 85 degrees) and a long lifetime), since then they're been fine again (although one has gone again, and the 1 capacitor that I didn't replace last time, is bulging now)

It depends how you are with electronics knowledge & soldering ability. If you're ok with both, you could atleast take a look to see if it can be fixed?

Of course, I take no responsibility if you hurt yourself doing this, and should only be attempted if you know how to do it safely.
 
If you shine a torch at it can you see the image? If you turn the screen off and back on does it light up for a second or two then go off again? If so, then it's likely that 1 or more CCFL tubes have blown - not that expensive to fix but fiddly as you need to completely dismantle the screen. You can pick up tubes from CCFL Warehouse in the US at around £30-40 inc postage and import duty.

As has been said above it could also be failing caps, but normally symptoms of that are the screen would flicker continually as it tries to power the CCFL tubes and sometimes it will stay on, other times not.

The last thing it could be is the power inverter transformer. These can normally be picked up from eBay for less than a tenner.
 
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Diggsy said:
If you shine a torch at it can you see the image? If you turn the screen off and back on does it light up for a second or two then go off again? If so, then it's likely that 1 or more CCFL tubes have blown - not that expensive to fix but fiddly as you need to completely dismantle the screen. You can pick up tubes from CCFL Warehouse in the US at around £30-40 inc postage and import duty.

As has been said above it could also be failing caps, but normally symptoms of that are the screen would flicker continually as it tries to power the CCFL tubes and sometimes it will stay on, other times not.

The last thing it could be is the power inverter transformer. These can normally be picked up from eBay for less than a tenner.
Click to expand...

Right, back from work. Shined a torch at it and I could see! Well, barely, but it was the bottom bar from media player classic, so its definitely the backlight. Time to take it apart and see if its anything obvious in there.
Though at £30-40 plus tax and so on for importing a tube, I think I'd rather just buy a new monitor. The BenQ G2255 is on TWO for £84, has a higher resolution, and won't be full of bugs (Currently it had 4 little thrips which had crawled into it and died between the glass (Or whatever the front is) and the screen, which were rather annoying, though not annoying enough to justify buying a new monitor.

These two issues may be related though. Perhaps I'll find a whole load of them fried on the PCB, shorting everything out. Who knows!
 
The £30-40 would be the full price after tax etc.

When you take it apart you will see that there are several thin layers at the front of the screen - UV, Anti Glare etc, no doubt within one of these layers will be where the little bugs are.

Could be unrelated to the CCFL's not working though.

Once you get the plastic casing off your monitor you will likely see a metal cover over the PSU, take that off and then remove all the connectors before lifting the remaining metal off the LCD panel.

You should be left with just the LCD panel with a PCB attached, held on by maybe 3 screws (this PCB is permanently attached to the screen - DON'T try to remove it, just lift up out of the way). Remove these, then look at the metal edging of the LCD panel. There will be a couple of screws left, remove them and then it should be a case of prising it apart. If it's like my 206bw, then you will notice some tabs on the edges of the metal casing. Get something like a screwdriver in these and that will release the metal casing.

Now, be very careful not to scratch the actual screen or any of the layers. Once you get the metal casing off and remove the actual screen itself you should see a metal rail running the full length at the top and bottom. Within these are your CCFL tubes. When removing these, bear in mind that the metal is really thin and you do not want to bend it. Just carefully slide them off and inspect the CCFL tubes for blackening at the edges, or as was in my case - breaks in the tubes.
 
Found out that one of my dad's friends fixes things like this for his company, so took it over to his place. Bugs all removed, and checked the PCB. There's 4 bulging caps, and scorch marks on the metal backing right next to one of them, so the solution seems pretty clear. Caps will be ordered on monday :D PCB is also rather discoloured on the back around the heatsink, experienced some pretty heavy heat there!

Not bothered trying to get the CCFL tubes out yet because, well, there is clearly a problem with the caps. If the new ones don't sort it then we'll have a look at them.
 
Sounds like you could well be in luck then, if it's just the caps will be very cheap and easy fix. Just make sure you replace them with high temp, low esr, good quality caps from the likes of Panasonic or Nichicon.
 
They were already 105C ones, so not much choice in replacement spec. Just going to get like for like.

The only odd thing is that despite apparently being the same spec caps, they were different colours. Two were blue, and two were black IIRC. Other than that, they seemed to be the same.

Anyway, I don't have the PCB on me, its with my mate who's the one who knows more about this stuff than me. I know he would pick up good quality ones though. Just need to wait for them to arrive. Annoyingly they won't arrive until tomorrow, and there won't be enough time to fit and try them out before the Dirt Showdown deal ends. Would have been nice to get a free game along with the replacement monitor, take some of the bite out of it! :(
 
Oh I'm sure the screen will be fine once the caps are done. Should give you another year or two trouble free with a bit of luck.
 
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