Computer monitor repair

[Marco]

@Andrew

@Marco

You don’t have to use a soldering iron. If you’re savvy, you can just open it it up, swap the boards and see if the symptoms persist. Cables are removable inside the monitor.

I’m hoping so. I’ve done that with laptop monitors before but I wasn’t sure if everything’s soldered inside a regular monitor. I guess I have a project for the weekend now!

@Marco

I’ve been checking, but all I found is one on eBay. Ruten and Shopee are ghost towns.

Yeah, the scratched eBay one of $25 plus $110 shipping didn’t seem too appealing. Couldn’t find anything on Shopee or Facebook either - I guess it’s quite an old model.

You just want the motherboard. You dont want one with a good panel. You get something cheap, toss the rest of it and fix it up brand new.

@Andrew

I’m hoping so. I’ve done that with laptop monitors before but I wasn’t sure if everything’s soldered inside a regular monitor. I guess I have a project for the weekend now!

Not likely soldered. Taiwanese companies ain’t gonna spend that kinda money. They’re cheap.

[Andrew]

Thanks for your help both of you. I guess I’ll disassemble both monitors when I get the chance, see if I can figure out where the problem is, and go from there!

[Marco]

The boards are really easy to pull out. lay it flat on a towel and just go at with the screws on the back and/or clips. The board will be affixed to the back of the panel and will happily taken out by screws and/or tape. You can’t solder to the monitor cause it’ll crack the panel. Take out the good one and put it in the other one and plug it in. If it fixes the problem, then you need to hunt for a new motherboard.

[Andrew]

Which would be better/least expensive - a motherboard issue or a panel issue? Am I correct in thinking: motherboard issue - possibly replaceable, panel issue - not worth repairing?

[Marco]

Panels can’t be repaired by you or I and are by far the most expensive thing to replace. The panel will certainly sell for big bucks to some computer guy who needs it for repair. When a panel is cracked, the motherboard becomes almost useless and is sold for peanuts.

Ideally, you want a good panel over a good motherboard cause good panels can fit into monitors with damaged panels and gives you the upper hand in negotiations. What you do with broken monitors since they’re (practically) made of two major and important components, the motherboard controller and the panel, if one breaks, you want to…match with another person that has a broken monitor with the opposite problem.

And then after matching with the person, you wanna get married and live happily ever after with them I mean you want to marry the parts together into one good monitor and conduct negotiations. If you have the panel, you either get a great monitor for dirt, or you get the money. If you have the motherboard, you…aren’t gonna sell it for much, but still better than buying an expensive panel.

Right now, personally ATM I have a $600US 3K panel since the motherboard on this VX24AH monitor is toast. I’m in search of a VX24AH motherboard, a damaged VX24AH, damaged PD2700Q or a damaged P2416D so I can get this beautiful display running once again.

[Marco]

@Marco

Hmmmm… It’s possible it’s a motherboard problem or a panel issue. The issue is that monitor repair is extremely expensive. Can you see any symptoms when the monitor is off? Shine your phone light on the affected area and see if the panel has any discoloured pixels when off.

This is what defective panels look like. A particularly egregious and obvious example.

[tempogain]

I think everything in that apartment is defective.

[Marco]

It’s not mine. It’s an eBay listing.

Dell P2418HT 24" LED LCD Professional Full HD IPS Touchscreen Monitor - Black...

[tempogain]

@Marco

It’s not mine.

I didn’t think it was

[frank_hnd]

@Andrew

Acer R240HY

You need to Google Acer service center. Seems like they have one at guanghua but you might have others closer. Drop the display off, they will diagnose the problem and call you back with a price and explanation. if it’s too expensive for your blood you can just say no and let them take care of the recycling.

The most expensive part of the monitor is the panel and if the panel is fine which should be unless you physically damaged the display then changing internal components should be fairly cheap. but yeah I wouldn’t spend more than 1k repairing this thing.

[frank_hnd]

@Marco

Not likely soldered. Taiwanese companies ain’t gonna spend that kinda money. They’re cheap.

There is no need to solder a monitor…

[Andrew]

@Marco

This is what defective panels look like. A particularly egregious and obvious example.

It looks like a map of Europe, post-Brexit. My screen doesn’t have anything like that.

[Marco]

@frank_hnd

@Andrew

Acer R240HY

let them take care of the recycling.

And drop off what could be an easy repair and/or valuable panel? If he doesn’t want it, I’ll take it cause I know I can fix these things. Don’t give it to the big companies, they make enough money already.

[frank_hnd]

@Marco

And drop off what could be an easy repair and/or valuable panel?

Not really valuable, I don’t want to be that guy but I bet that panel is a goner…
A new monitor similar to that one is about 3k, he has an older model that is EOL already. These are entry level displays that don’t have the best components inside.

[Andrew]

Just spent an hour disassembling and reassembling both monitors and…it does indeed seem to be the panel.

Putting the board from the functional monitor into the defective one gave the same issue, while putting the board from the defective monitor into the functional monitor didn’t have an effect.

Replacement panels (LM238WF2 (SS)(F1)) seem to sell for a minimum of 2300 TWD up to 3900 TWD on Shopee/Ruten, so it seems not to be worth trying to replace that.

Guess I’ll need to go monitor shopping at some point then.

[Marco]

I would hold onto your old motherboard. If the good monitor dies and it’s the board, you can revive it for a second life.