How to repair a Dead Dell 3008WFP Monitor

[Dewdan]

Thank you so much to Embalse and all the other people who contributed to this solution.

My monitor is working perfectly again, I didn't dare to do the soldering job, but dismantled as indicated and took it to a technician, cost me 10€ plus the 15 for the diode, i still got 3 of them if someone need it, please let me know.
The most difficult part was removing the front frame, i started from the right bottom corner where the buttons are and ones that was off enough I could juts use my fingers without any tool to opening entirely.

Otherwise really happy to have resuscitated my monitor!

Cheers
Daniel

 

[embalse]

Thank you so much to Embalse and all the other people who contributed to this solution.

My monitor is working perfectly again, I didn't dare to do the soldering job, but dismantled as indicated and took it to a technician, cost me 10€ plus the 15 for the diode, i still got 3 of them if someone need it, please let me know.
The most difficult part was removing the front frame, i started from the right bottom corner where the buttons are and ones that was off enough I could juts use my fingers without any tool to opening entirely.

Otherwise really happy to have resuscitated my monitor!

Cheers
Daniel

Glad you got it sorted!

.

 

[grgart]

Hello,
I repaired PSU 2or3 years ago, as I can remember I just replaced diode D22.
Monitor worked again perfectly until today.
Now problem is different, lower 1/4 of LCD does not work (black or low light stripe lines on that area).

Any idea?

 

[Anton Ertl]

Thank you, embalse, for your great guide! My 3008WFP died after some years in the middle of work, and I let it lie for some more years, but recently decided to have a go at repairing it, found your guide, followed it (with the great help of my friends Herbert and Gerald), and now my monitor is working again.

We found the unsoldering the hardest part of the process. We did not get far with desoldering braid or pump. What finally worked was to clamp the heatsink to the table, exert a force to the PCB that tries to bend it away from the heat sink at the soldering joint you are working on, melt the joint, so the PCB can actually bend, then let it cool, and work on the next joint. After some rounds of going through the joints the PCB was separated from the heat sink, and we could use a desoldering pump to get rid of the solder.

 

[Jim Henderson]

Time to resurrect this ancient thread once again. Really great guide by the way and I thank you should I ever need to use it.

Last year someone was selling a broken 3008WFP as broken near me and I had the moron idea that I could fix it up. The LCD panel was cracked so I figured it'd be a straight swap and I could sell my current monitor.

tl;dr I swapped out the panel; it powers on fine, and the backlight works but I don't get an image (not even a "no signal" message). Anybody got any ideas about what I might have gotten wrong?

 

[jaaa1976]

Time to resurrect this ancient thread once again. Really great guide by the way and I thank you should I ever need to use it.

Last year someone was selling a broken 3008WFP as broken near me and I had the moron idea that I could fix it up. The LCD panel was cracked so I figured it'd be a straight swap and I could sell my current monitor.

tl;dr I swapped out the panel; it powers on fine, and the backlight works but I don't get an image (not even a "no signal" message). Anybody got any ideas about what I might have gotten wrong?

Hi..did you check LCD Screen Cable for damage? this cable is often damaged from heat inside monitor.

 

[Jim Henderson]

Hi..did you check LCD Screen Cable for damage? this cable is often damaged from heat inside monitor.

I did wonder, since they use teeny tiny wires and I considered that they might be the problem. Might have a spare from one of the other monitors I salvaged for this but otherwise might have to look for a new one

 

[jaaa1976]

I did wonder, since they use teeny tiny wires and I considered that they might be the problem. Might have a spare from one of the other monitors I salvaged for this but otherwise might have to look for a new one

I buy cheap 2 of this monitors but found both cables damaged is very hard to find .. anybody have this cable ..please pm me thanks.

 

[Malvineous]

Another happy repair! My 3008WFP just blinked off three weeks ago while I was using it and wouldn't switch back on. Unlike others in this thread, mine actually lasted for almost 10 years before it broke! Weirdly, I had replaced the monitor with another so it had been sitting unplugged for a few months, and when I finally set it up as a second monitor, after a couple of days *that's* when it broke...

Opening it up took me three hours because the bezel was so stubborn. I found a couple of things that made the process a lot simpler that weren't mentioned here, so for the benefit of anyone else:

• You can undo the three screws behind the front panel buttons - the thing is a lot easier to work with without that bezel getting in the way all the time.
• With the monitor face up and the front bezel off, there are a bunch of tiny black screws that attach the back plastic case onto the middle bezel. Without undoing these screws it was almost impossible to get the back off, as my monitor had some of the metal shielding sandwiched between the rear plastic cover and the middle bezel, and I only realised as the metal started bending when I was trying to pull the back off. Undoing the screws allows the back cover to lift off much more easily, with the middle shiny plastic bezel staying behind and being removed afterwards. Here's a pic of where a couple of the screws are - there are three or four on each side, plus a larger one in each of the four corners.
  
  

I managed to desolder the faulty diode on its own without having to remove any of the heatsinks or other components so that was a big timesaver, and checking it with a multimeter showed that it was indeed faulty - a direct short on the ohmmeter between any of the pins.

Although this thread recommended replacing the diode with an STPS60170CT instead, where I am in Australia I could only get those for $6 ea as a pack of 5, so I didn't really want to pay $30 and have four diodes I'd probably never use again. So I looked around and instead went with an ON Semi brand NTST30120CTG (120 V, 30 A, TO-220AB package, written on the chip as TS30120CG), as it cost $2.50 for a pair of these delivered from RS Components. Unlike the suggested replacement which is quite a step up, this part is pretty much the same spec as the original faulty Vishay component. I guess time will tell whether the Vishay one was badly made (if my similar replacement lasts for years) or whether the board is overdriving the component (if my replacement dies again soon). So far it's been two weeks since the repair and it's working fine, so fingers crossed it'll see me through at least another 10 years.

Unfortunately I forgot to remove the little black ring from the faulty diode so my replacement has been soldered in without it, and I was also lazy and didn't bother to replace all the shielding tape that I cut through to disassemble it. Whatever was left is mostly stuck back together and there's so much metal screwed together I'm sure it'll be fine. At least now I understand why that monitor is so heavy, I was always surprised at how it weighed the same as the CRT that it replaced all those years ago!

On an unrelated note I had it plugged in to a power meter while I was testing it and I can't believe this screen uses 100 watts when it's running! No wonder you can feel the heat radiating out of it when you're sitting in front of it.

A huge thanks to everyone else in this thread for documenting this repair so well and making it such an easy fix!

 

[^JP^]

Can't believe it has been over 4 years since I did the DIY fix! I originally purchased it from OCUK on 11th Sep 2008 for £809.10 (still have the invoice), I think I have got my moneys worth, sure it gets hot and has some dead bugs stuck inside it but I just can't get rid of it until it actually dies!

 

[embalse]

Can't believe it has been over 4 years since I did the DIY fix! I originally purchased it from OCUK on 11th Sep 2008 for £809.10 (still have the invoice), I think I have got my moneys worth, sure it gets hot and has some dead bugs stuck inside it but I just can't get rid of it until it actually dies!

Same here. Having repaired it in 2012, mine finally "met its maker" this year, so that's pretty good. Am currently looking for a new monitor.


.

 

[DigitalStefan]

Many thanks to the OP and other contributing posters here. I bought a Dell 3008 from the British Heart Foundation's eBay store in January this year as a cheap upgrade to my original 2405. It stopped working at the end of March. I was absolutely gutted and I immediately started shopping for a replacement. I'm not sure what lead me to search for repair info, but I'm glad I did.

I already had a soldering iron, desoldering pump, copper braid solder wick and an iFixit toolkit, so I was looking forward to not having to use bicycle tyre levers and old credit cards as tools.

What I ended up buying:-

New soldering iron tip because mine broke in storage.
3 x assorted pack of new soldering tips that actually fit my iron after the first one didn't.
3 x replacement diodes (2 for spares, just because).
Aluminium tape.
Kryonaut thermal paste (expensive, but I needed some anyway).
Kryonaut thermal pads (expensive and I ended up not needing at all).

The hardest part wasn't getting the front bezel off, although I did struggle at first and it took an hour. The hardest part was actually screwing in the new diode to attach it to the heatsink. I don't know how the hell anyone else managed this unless they also desoldered one or two of the big capacitors. Those big caps were preventing me getting to the diode on one side with a screwdriver and the diode the other side to hold the nut that attaches to the screw.

After dropping and almost losing the nut 10 times, I stuck a tiny ring of blu-tack around the outside of the nut and gripped that with the iFixit slightly angled pincer things. Managed to get enough purchase with the screwdriver at an odd angle the other side to make it all work.

The second hardest part was getting the back bezel off. The only way I could do it was by unscrewing the 3 tiny screws from the front bezel button assembly and then unscrewing something like 17 screws from around the rear bezel.

I only ended up with 2 screws left over. I think they come from either side of the power connector, but it's covered by the back bezel and there's no damn way I'm taking that all off again unless absolutely necessary.


If anyone ever asks me to do the same repair on their Dell 3008, there's no way I'd agree. All told it took me around 5 hours across 2 sessions. The first session stopped as soon as I got to the point of needing a soldering iron, when I figured out my tip had bent and cracked. The second session was yesterday. I started at 3pm and finished at 6pm.

If this monitor fails again, It's going on eBay and I'll get a 3011 instead.

 

[Gideon Coppens]

Registered to show my gratitude to the OP and other contributors, Thank You!!

Last year i won 2 of those at a bankruptcy auction from an international auction house, "cleaned and tested" it specified, and indeed i had them turned on by a family member that lives in the country where i bought them after he picked them up and both worked! So seemed a bargain and a dream become reality since the largest screen ive ever owned is no more then 22".
Not a frequent buyer of used goods i thought that such high class screens coming from a working environment have all the chance to last a long time.

After having them wait in storage for about 6 months while trying to find a way to get them safely 2000km to where i live i found a moving company nearby driving close to that route and finally received my superscreens (having only ever seen those in movies and series in intelligence control centers and such)

Hooked them up the same day and they both worked fine but had to wait a few days till i had the full resolution, after ordering a DP cable, and wow it is so much better then my 22" led screen.

But then exactly one week of using monitor #1 about 8 hours a day it suddenly switched itself off and showed no signs of life no matter what i tried. Luckily i had monitor #2 available and was able to continue the movie i was watching which helped a lot to control my disappointment...

So the next day it didn't take long to find this tread and it calmed me down enough to not burst in tears when monitor #2 died the same way 2 days later

Actually "you" gave me the motivation to see it as a project with a good chance of succes despite the fact i never really soldered much more then a speaker cable.

Opened up monitor #1, the bezel was tough but with my motivation and swiss knife no real obstacle, but i had great difficulties getting the back off after i turned it around because it got stuck at one end to one of those metal covers, eventually managed to dismantle it till i had the power supply in my hands. Then i had to order some tin(with lead), flux and a de-solder pump and braids which arrived a couple of days later.
The de-soldering went OK that day using the de-soldering pump only where the legs of the heat sink where the most difficult but ended up with the faulty diode in my fingers. I tested it right away and it seemed melted together from the inside.
After 3 weeks of searching and getting replacement diodes i managed to solder it back together after struggling 45minutes and two coffee breaks on the screw...
Reassembled it to the point i could connect it to try and hurraaa it worked!!!

The next day i started on monitor #2 which i managed to open quite easily and the back came off without getting stuck anywhere but i had extreme difficulties de-soldering for which i have mostly to blame the cheap de-soldering pump i had with a bit too large suction part to really be able to reach the center pin of the diodes, which on top of that gave me great problems when i had to redo the soldering after unintentionally creating bridges, and ended up damaging the pads even, hours of de- and re- soldering and late in the evening monitor #2 turned on...

Its only been a day since but i'm not worried at all thanks to you all. The next time a used screen passes by i will think twice! Unless its a Dell 3008wfp

Thanks again and Kind Regards,


Gideon Coppens

 

[DigitalStefan]

Sorry if this is hijacking the thread a little, but I bought a second 3008 after repairing the first one. The second one is (so far) fine, except that the DisplayPort input doesn't work. Monitor just goes into standby. Windows pings to recognise the monitor when connected, but doesn't allow it the be selected as an output (settings revert automatically).

Beside completely replacing the main PCB, has anyone encountered this error and discovered a fix?

My current plan is to access the mainboard and look for anything obvious, check continuity, reflow solder joints etc.

 

[slade_x]

hi everyone, I also have a dell 3008wfp but its issue is different. It powers on but only the backlight turns on, it wont do anything else and doesn't even display the "no input" test screen? Anyone have any idea? LCD Controller? I really appreciate any help, thanks.

 

[Patrick Kenny]

I just wanted to join the 3008wfp club
I have had the monitor for about 13 years and it went black after going into powersave mode a month ago, I somehow got it back on, and it stayed on. So i never turned it off now. I was careful about it not going into powersave (the little yellow light on the power button comes on), but just today it went into powersave, when the computer went off.
I still get a blue light on the power button and when i turn it off and on, I can see the computer screen for about 1 sec then it goes to black, i keep doing it in the hopes it will come back on like last time, but can't get it.
Seems like its not getting warmed up enough to stay on or something is getting shorted, can't say its the same diode problem.
Has anyone else experienced this?

I will probably just replace it with a newer 2K or 4K or something, but it always feels good to fix it.

 

[James Knight]

Thank you embalse for your detailed thread.

If I am honest if I can only add one element of advice. Read through the whole thread and watch all the videos.

My Bezel was a B**** and took me eight times more time to get no where. To find that watching the video on the 3007 model providing the trick to getting it of. By gently leveraging the bezel up from the inside out. When I placed a credit card on the outside. I separated the metal bezel from its plastic inner structure.

I got the Diode from Amazon in the end for under £5. Stripped it down and realised that my gas soldering iron was up the spout. So took it to a TV repaire place who charged me £20. So if anyone is in the south east london / north west kent area I can recommend a good electrical engineer.

Either way thank you all involved in this thread for your help. I am glad to be another case of keeping the 3008WFP owners club still alive.

Finally, if anyone has done the fix, who bought the original diode recommended. How are your screens doing. Are they all fine with no adverse effects?

 

[LOAM]

My turn, still got a 3008 without issue, until today.....I'm working from home and ive been making a few noises about the frequency that I need to swap cables around from the works PC to my personal one and IT said they would send me out a small DP and HDMI extension so that any wear damage would be done to the extension cable and not the ports on my monitors. Anyway they arrived and whilst the HDMI one has worked a charm the DP one unbelievably seems to have damaged the DP port on the monitor. It wouldn't display for 3 machines and several cables until I left it unplugged for 10mins then it bizarrely worked but it seems like any disturbance of the cable will send the monitor into power save. Does anyone know or can anyone remember how DP connectors are fixed to the mainboard? Do they have a carrier PCB or are they connected via a ribbon? The image above shows the connection but its really low res and I cant tell.

are they something like this;





If so how do those pins fix to the board?

 

[Navdude]

Just wanted to a say a huge thanks to everyone on this thread and the original poster. Followed the instructions here, purchased the component and soldering iron, watched a number of videos on how to desolder and then had a go. Bezel of the case is a little worse for wear but my Dell 3008WFP lives again. I didn't replace the shielding tape and did end up with 3 screws over..... not sure from where as everything looks secure but really chuffed to have this monitor working again.

 

[chaparral]

If i remember right there was also a known problem with the Dell 2405FPW PSU where it would die after about 4 or 5 years
Was the reason why i bought my U2410 back in around 2010 or 2011 after my 2405FPW PSU died

My Asus PG278Q PSU also died and i had to buy a new one PSU (This was another well known PSU fail problem )