This project is a longtime in the making, it's not a case as such but thought it would be fun to post. This is the story about the Blue Screen Of Death!
Skip story if you wish...
5 Years ago I built my first PC without any assistance (The one before it I did have some help) and with it I bought my first TFT, from the recommendations of this forum it was a Hyundai Imagequest Q17. The screen was huge and made a huge difference from my cheapie 19" CRT that I had before. As time went on I bought another PC second hand, and another Q17 second hand, saving so much space from dualscreening with a 19" crt. Fastforward 4 years and one day one of the screens didn't turn on, green light was on but there was no image. Using a torch I could see that there was still an image but no backlight, reading around it sounded like the inverter had failed.
I decided to swap the inverter from one of my screens to the other to see if it was that which had died. The build quality on these things is definitely something because it took me over 2 hours to get the front plastic off each screen, but after half a day they were swapped over and the original screen was working again. Wanting to dualscreen again I bought another Q17, unfortunately whilst waiting for delivery the second inverter was flickering, 2 weeks later I had a new screen but the other inverter had died.
2 Dead inverters, after 4 years I suppose they both could have gone. I contacted Hyundai and after agreeing on what was about £28 they agreed to send over any parts they could find. This included 2 inverters (generic inverters wouldn't have worked without soldering, already looked into it), 2 power boards which I had no idea what were for, and replacement cables for just about everything. Everything was good and I had 3 screens on my desk.
2 months pass and I go to visit a friend, my laptop was in repair for the 7th time (Thanks Acer... another thread in laptops somewhere) so I took my PC and one screen. When I get there I plug it straight into the mains and POP... the inverter on the first screen went again
. I was not going to pay for some more inverters as I was worried it was just going to kill them again, instead whilst I was there I completely stripped the panel down, blu-tacked it to a shelf and placed a desklamp behind it so I could game for the week.
It's been 4 months, was considering some sort of mod like I've seen here before where someone mounted a screen in their sidepanel. The only problem this was backlit and mine wasn't. I considered buying an OHP but it was too bulky and I didn't really need it, too complicated for modding. If I couldn't replace the inverter, I'd have to find another way of backlighting it, building a new screen case was my next idea, then sticking some cathodes behind it to light it... why not just replace the cathodes inside the screen already with cheapie case jobbies?
end of story
And so project BSOD was born, the screen that has killed 3 inverters is going to get a new ticker!
The offending screen and 2 Vantec blue cathodes, I only have blue ones to hand and didn't feel like paying out for white ones if it wasn't going to work.
Taking off the plastic surround, luckily I've had a lot of practice and can do it much quicker!
More pieces.
Skip story if you wish...
5 Years ago I built my first PC without any assistance (The one before it I did have some help) and with it I bought my first TFT, from the recommendations of this forum it was a Hyundai Imagequest Q17. The screen was huge and made a huge difference from my cheapie 19" CRT that I had before. As time went on I bought another PC second hand, and another Q17 second hand, saving so much space from dualscreening with a 19" crt. Fastforward 4 years and one day one of the screens didn't turn on, green light was on but there was no image. Using a torch I could see that there was still an image but no backlight, reading around it sounded like the inverter had failed.
I decided to swap the inverter from one of my screens to the other to see if it was that which had died. The build quality on these things is definitely something because it took me over 2 hours to get the front plastic off each screen, but after half a day they were swapped over and the original screen was working again. Wanting to dualscreen again I bought another Q17, unfortunately whilst waiting for delivery the second inverter was flickering, 2 weeks later I had a new screen but the other inverter had died.
2 Dead inverters, after 4 years I suppose they both could have gone. I contacted Hyundai and after agreeing on what was about £28 they agreed to send over any parts they could find. This included 2 inverters (generic inverters wouldn't have worked without soldering, already looked into it), 2 power boards which I had no idea what were for, and replacement cables for just about everything. Everything was good and I had 3 screens on my desk.
2 months pass and I go to visit a friend, my laptop was in repair for the 7th time (Thanks Acer... another thread in laptops somewhere) so I took my PC and one screen. When I get there I plug it straight into the mains and POP... the inverter on the first screen went again
. I was not going to pay for some more inverters as I was worried it was just going to kill them again, instead whilst I was there I completely stripped the panel down, blu-tacked it to a shelf and placed a desklamp behind it so I could game for the week. It's been 4 months, was considering some sort of mod like I've seen here before where someone mounted a screen in their sidepanel. The only problem this was backlit and mine wasn't. I considered buying an OHP but it was too bulky and I didn't really need it, too complicated for modding. If I couldn't replace the inverter, I'd have to find another way of backlighting it, building a new screen case was my next idea, then sticking some cathodes behind it to light it... why not just replace the cathodes inside the screen already with cheapie case jobbies?
end of story
And so project BSOD was born, the screen that has killed 3 inverters is going to get a new ticker!
The offending screen and 2 Vantec blue cathodes, I only have blue ones to hand and didn't feel like paying out for white ones if it wasn't going to work.
Taking off the plastic surround, luckily I've had a lot of practice and can do it much quicker!
More pieces.
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