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About 8 months ago I got a 24" Sansui HDMI monitor. The other day I noticed what appears to be a burn mark right above the power indicator light on the screen, and thought nothing of it, like maybe it was from something I inadvertently got on the screen by accident. But today it started having weird scan lines only on the bottom of the screen that flicker and the internal controller where the HDMI plugs in is way too hot. Is there a way to keep it cooler? Or is the monitor done? I'm stuck using a 19" monitor from another PC I don't even use right now as a backup, but it's very annoying. I suspect that the 144 Hz refresh is what is causing it stress and I swore I turned it back down to 60 Hz but apparently not. It might be too late for that trick to work.
I don't think you are going to be able to save that one.
If it were me, I would keep an eye out for an iiyama on ebay.
I scored an ex-display Pro Lite B2712HDS 27" for a good price way over 10 years ago IIRC & touch wood, it is still behaving itself impeccably.
🙂
I have four (on two computers) BenQ graphics monitors (the 'PD' series). Two of them have to be a billion years old and they all still perform perfectly. They aren't the cheapest available but I'll pay for reliability. That's why I also have ancient Honda's. My oldest has 480K kilometers on her and still runs perfectly.
I don't think it is. A lot of things now are built to fall apart soon after the warranty expires. I know I said 8 months but I'm bad at judging time so it's probably more like over a year ago.
I'll keep my eyes open for an IIyama. I have no Idea if I'll ever see a BenQ in the wild that I can afford. For now the best I can do is a cheap $70 replacement. And if that's not bad enough I have to replace an aging phone because the glue holding it together isn't holding it together anymore. Like, who thought that was a good idea? Using glue to assemble a phone that gives of heat?
For most, it's not worth it to try and restore monitors, but if your a tad 'techy', you can troubleshoot and repair them.
Last year we had a lengthy power outage that took out my Viewsonic 27". I went ahead and bought another one, but figured I could revive my old one. I suspected the power supply, so looked for another PS board online, with no luck.
Since I guessed the PS capacitors were probably taken out by the power spike when power was restored, I could use an ESR meter to ID any bad caps, but I actually just re-capped the whole board because capacitors have a 'shelf-life' after which the electrolyte won't handle any stressors, like spikes and this was an old monitor with a lot of hours on it.
The hardest part of the repair was getting the case apart, it cost about 10 bucks to fix it.
@jorgen74, We have horrible power here with all kinds of spikes and transients from the farms around here. I have two UPS's, one for each computer. They aren't big and will only power them for 10-15 minutes, but they do filter out all the crap and keep the computers running during short brown-outs. If the power goes out completely while I'm home, I can drag out my small generator and get the essential stuff running. If I'm not home, there's a tiny utility that monitors the external power and gracefully shuts down the computer vice a hard crash. They're from Xfinity.
When/if I win big I'm gonna put up solar panels and a HUGE battery bank to mostly keep my computers running.@ethiopia: I'm in the same boat. This is a rural area that experiences power outages at the drop of a hat - not because the power is bad, but because SCE is scared to death of any potential liability due to weather so shuts it down if even a little wind comes up.
I had used 1500 VA APC UPSs (4) until I discovered that a typical UPS doesn't actually buffer the line via battery power as you would expect. What it actually does is offer line filtering, similar to a power strip, until the power fails, then it delivers battery power to an inverter that provides you with AC current.
Which kind of makes sense, otherwise the continual duty cycle of battery-to-inverter charging would severely limit the battery life, which isn't that great to begin with (and batteries ain't cheap).
And yes, we have two Honda 2kw gens and a Harbor Freight 3500 watt gen for the inevitable power failures, all inverter-gens. But that doesn't do us much good for online access when the power is out since the AP we use is also down when the power is out, so we just tether at that point. Out here, all internet is OTA or Starlink. No fiber, no cable, just coyotes, rattlesnakes and aliens (the ET kind).
@Josie:
On the phone thing, I ran across this just a minute ago:If I had the tools, I would attempt that myself, but then again I'd probably attempt to repair or convert some drives I have too. But the tooling for all that is a bit too steep a cost right now. I suspect the problem is the caps on the converter because of the burn mark by that indicator light. I'm afraid to turn it on again. A $70 replacement is probably the most practical fix right now.
I like the idea of a repairable phone, but that's way outside of my price range right now. And it's also very unlikely that I'll find a used one since they seem to be something people would rather hang on to for a while.
I have two UPS units that I use for the PC, but the bigger one is inoperable because the battery died. It's not super expensive to replace it, but it's also not something I can justify doing yet since so many other things are breaking and need replacement.
I only have it hooked up since it means I can turn the computer off myself when the power goes out instead of everything crashing at once. Power outages have been a problem before, but for some reason the frequency is not as bad as it was a couple of years ago. I have a feeling it was because they upgraded the grid to ready it for a datacenter, and then that was overwhelmingly shot down along with the intrusive cameras they wanted to put up everywhere. My town does not want any of those.
In fact it was one of the first places years ago to remove red light cameras so there are none at intersections anywhere. They don't even have speeding cameras. If a live person doesn't issue the ticket, it doesn't happen. I'm still very surprised at the lack of cameras compared to other population centers. Sure they are on government buildings and warehouses, but not the ones that read license plates or do facial recognition. If there are any of those, then it's probably only at the airport.
Tooling isn't much: soldering iron, 60-40 solder, rosin-flux, either braid or a solder-sucker (or just heat it and pull it), appropriate mini wire cutters.
A pin-vise and some bits is handy to avoid having to struggle with partially closed solder pads that you *don't* want to overheat, but not strictly necessary.
The only thing you need that costs is a $40 ESR meter to identify bad caps. If you decide as I did that while it's out, just re-cap the whole board, you don't strictly need the ESR meter, except to confirm that the board did actually have a bad cap that was the failure point (otherwise you're just guessing).
Look on ebay or amazon for electrolytic capacitor kits, pay attention to the voltage and uf ranges. A larger working voltage is ok, just not a smaller one. You might have to get some values independently, make sure the kit you get has the lion's share of what you need (they all publish what's in the kit).
The kits are a lot better buy and faster delivery than picking individual components from places like Digi-Key or Mouser.
Pay attention to polarity and solder bridges, don't overheat, which might lift a pad or a trace. Amalgamate the factory solder with your 60-40 to give it a lower melt-point. keep the iron clean and tinned (a sally block works wonders). Plug the board back in and test it before putting the case back together, in case you have to go back in again.
You can bring that monitor back, which is a lot less expensive than throwing cash at another one (although that's exactly what I did, but I didn't have a backup handy).
@jorgen74, Here it's trees. We're heavily forested and trees going down through the lines are the main cause of power outages. The increasing ferocity of storms doesn't help (thanks global warming) and increasing infestation of non-native bugs that just love to bore into the trees, weakening them (again, thanks global warming) is a double wammy. On the plus side the bobcat population is going up which keeps the damn raccoons at bay and out of my gardens.
@Ethiopia:
Yes indeed, the trees. Out here, we went through the same thing up in Paradise, took out the whole town. That's the reason all the power companies are so paranoid of anything that might cause a fire, even here in the desert where trees are few and far between.We've had a couple of burns, even here, over the years. Though mostly in the adjacent mountains, it does cause wildlife to migrate down here, even had a few bears rummaging around out here a few years back. Had one right outside the house, prompted me to get a new led light for the picatinny rail on the Enfield.
Transients and spikes aren't too bad, SCE did a major overhaul shortly after the Paradise episode (that was PG&E's liability), our major issue where I live is SCE's itchy trigger finger to shut down the grid when any weather event poses even a hint of possible liability.
@jorgen74, This is a hoot, we're on the opposite sides of the continent. I have a good friend living fairly close (relatively) to you in Venice Beach. He bicycled there from here last year to take care of his elderly Mom. He covered 7,000 kms and it took him almost two months. amazingly, that was the third time he'd done that.
We have black bears here but they're chicken shit and run when you surprise them. I scare them every so often on my bicycle when peddling the trails.
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