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Got a 19 inch LCD Display from my boss...

kite210

Well-known member
This was an interesting one:

I work in a small PC/Cell Phone/Grocery/Random store near my house, and some teenager brought in an HP monitor(an HP w1907) it would turn on and then turn off, he then proceeded to sell it to my boss for $2 dollars. My boss asked me to see what was wrong with it and I did some research.

It turned out that this specific model had an issue with a wire on the back light coming loose and detaching from the solder, so he had me take it home and told me that if I fixed that screen for him, he would give me another screen that was doing the same thing. I proceeded to spend 6 hours 8-o taking it apart, repair the problem, and put it all back together. Once I got back to work yesterday, He handed me a box and this was what was in it:

Photoon2011-04-06at0438.jpg.2e9643adf3cc4c14e7de928136289ea9.jpg


It's an I-Inc 19 inch display, model ic194dpb.

It's a standard display(not widescreen), and has a resolution of 1280 X 1024, with an aspect ration of 5:4.

I tried plugging it in once I got it home and it made a faint sound, so I instantly knew what it was, Bad capacitors on the power board, so now I'm waiting for my paycheck so I can order new Caps(9 total have to be replaced).

I'll keep you posted on the progress.

 

MacJunky

Well-known member
There was a LCD made a few years ago that someone brought to me to be fixed last summer. It would turn on then after a couple mins turn off and you had to let it "cooldown" to get the most runtime from it.(not that it was usable in that condition)

Ten mins to crack it open and look what we have here! Bad caps. :p Replaced those and it worked properly and the picture quality improved very significantly.

So yea, guys, if you like to solder and can get a cheap/free display, look into it. Granted, many LCDs considered faulty may have hard/impossible to fix problems but it is worth a try imo.

 

Gorgonops

Moderator
Staff member
A broken 1280x1024 display seems like a pretty poor payoff for six hours work, but I suppose fixing them is good experience...

 

kite210

Well-known member
Yeah, I was a bit disappointed, but the reason it took me 6 hours is because it was my first time repairing an LCD screen, so I think it was pretty good considering all I have to do is replace a few caps, instead of taking the actual LCD apart like the other one.

I'm gonna order the replacement caps from badcaps.net, as they don't have minimum order requirements.

Either way, 1280x1024 is the right size for me, and it's an easy fix. :eek:)

 

Unknown_K

Well-known member
I got a free BenQ FP731 17" 1280x1024 LCD screen a few years ago that only needed a couple capacitors and a few cheap transisters replaced to function (backlight would go out a second after you turned it in). Parts were probably $6 total and the repair was a few hours (mostly to clean up some bad solder joints from the factory). That monitor is my lab test monitor (easier to move around and setup then a CRT, takes less space). While it works fine those older monitors were not that good for gaming because of slow screen refresh and subpar blacks. Back then LCDs were still a little expensive, these days you can get new ones pretty cheap. I kind of like 1280x1024 (this 19" LCD I am using in my room has that resolution).

 

4seasonphoto

Well-known member
Glad I happened upon this thread because I have a bunch of 17-19" Samsung monitors that I was going to send to the recycler, but now I think I'll at least pop them open and see if any look like simple fixes.

 

kite210

Well-known member
It's a shock to find out that after all these years, there are still a lot of reports on bad caps.

It just goes to show that cutting corners to save a few pennies only causes headaches down the road.

 

Unknown_K

Well-known member
These days its more bad designs then bad capacitors. Cutting corners in design makes money plus customers have to replace things every few years instead of every ten or twenty.

 

Christopher

Well-known member
I got a dell 15" LCD from a garage sale a few years back and I googled the model number and it turned out it used the same solder from the iBook G3's. Cracked it open found the back solder joint, added my own solder and she still works flawlessly to this day. I use it at work since my desk didn't have an LCD supplied like everyone else's.

 

kite210

Well-known member
UPDATE:

I got the display to work, I had to replace 3 1000uF 25v caps with ones that were 35v, and a 470uF 25v cap with one that's 35v as well. The only cap I wasn't able to replace was a 330uF 25v cap (didn't have it at the local Radio shack) but it doesn't affect the monitor or sound, so I think it's capacitance hasn't been affected. I'm gonna change it when I can locate another one (Probably will get it from Jameco electronics).

It powered right up and is now my main display for my Power Mac G3 B&W, I'll have pictures soon.

 

techknight

Well-known member
worst idea ever is to use radioshack capacitors. they are the same, if not worse than the originals that were in it.

 

kite210

Well-known member
Yeah, but I really don't care too much about the display, It's mostly going to be used for testing other computers.

I'll probably replace them later on though, as soon as I can find rubycon caps.

 
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