Dead monitor?


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Way back in 2007, my family got two ViewSonic VG2030wm monitors, one for me, and one for my parents. At the time, they were great screens, fairly high-resolution, nice color reproduction, etc. On my monitor, after a year or two, I'd notice the monitor would start to flicker when something dark colored or black would be displayed on screen. The solution was to bump the brightness down to next to nothing. Not the best solution, but it still works (I'm using it on my main desktop to type this post).

 

My parent's screen has been acting up lately, now. For the past few months, whenever their desktop (running Windows 7 x64) would wake up from sleep, the screen would stay black for a few minutes with only the monitor's LED flashing blue. The computer was awake, as you could still blindly click around and hear Windows 7's various notification sounds. Normally after a few minutes (maybe 10-15) the monitor would finally turn back on. Today it never came back on. I thought it was probably a driver issue with their computer, so I grabbed a spare monitor and it worked right away.

 

Decided to attach the ViewSonic up to another PC, and I'm still getting the flashing LED power indicator and if you look closely enough, whenever the power LED flashes you can see the monitor's backlight flash on and off. Something tells me the screen's probably dead, but I'm not 100% sure. The troubleshooting guide in the monitor's manual and ViewSonic's website doesn't mention it. Anyone else experienced something like this before? Probably time to replace the monitor.

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My monitor started doing the exact same thing. It did this for about 2 months and the time between black and working state started expanding to 20-30 minutes. Then one day, it would not come on at all. 

I am saving it for testing my bosses S&W .500 Magnum to see exactly what $4.00 per trigger pull will do to a LCD Monitor.  :woot:

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happened with my VS monitor too few months ago, I open it and replaced the fuse & its working fine again. if you had played with electronic parts you should replace the fuse &  check if it works for you ?

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I recommend opening it up and looking around on the power board for blown electrolytic capacitors. It isn't unusual for these to fail. These caps look like an aluminum can with a cross on the top. If the top isn't flat (swollen, bulged, splayed open, or leaking at the top or base), then it is likely blown and needs to be replaced.

Fortunately, you can probably find cheap replacements. The repair does require soldering, but the boards are typically not dense, and so it can be accomplished by a soldering novice.

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Agree with Xahid and zhangm. Lately I have been buying monitors and TVs not working (issues like the ones you describe), I look for bulge capacitors, as well as testing power supply unit and main board.

 

Your monitor power supply looks like this one...if you know how to do it, check for bulge capacitors.

 

original-power-board-for-viewsonic-vg203

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Sounds exactly like a bad capacitor or capacitors. (y)

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Had a Samsung 19" do the same nearly two years ago. The cause was two warped capacitors on the internal board area. The display had two "thunder-flies" (thrips) stuck between the layers so I was looking for an excuse to replace it rather than repair.

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A screen that old is not really worth fixing IMHO, you can get a half decent 1080 screen for around $100 these days 

 

I have a cheap HansG screen that's been doing that lately, bought in 09, getting chucked real soon, lasted twice as long as I expected it to last so I'm not angry at all 

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Thanks everyone. That's what I kind of thought. I'll crack it open and see if I can find anything blown/bulging.

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Should be a really cheap fix. Much cheaper than buying a new monitor. Good luck, man. It shouldn't be too hard to fix. Let is know how it turns out. (y)

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A screen that old is not really worth fixing IMHO, you can get a half decent 1080 screen for around $100 these days 

 

I have a cheap HansG screen that's been doing that lately, bought in 09, getting chucked real soon, lasted twice as long as I expected it to last so I'm not angry at all 

 

It makes sense to get something 1080p nowadays, but honestly, you can buy caps VERY cheap at:

 

The Cap King

 

Mouser

 

Digikey

 

and fix that monitor to last a little longer while you save $$$

 

:)

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