Monitor issue

[alman84]

Hey all,

The office I work in has had a few Dell monitors start doing the exact same thing. I took a picture to show:

Any idea? I can only think of it being something like a faulty decoder. I know it's not the computer or cable as I've tried switching both to no avail, plus it's happened on three different monitors (the exact same model - Dell 2100 FPV). I'm kind of thinking we're just going to have to buy new ones (they're not under warranty anymore), but thought I'd see if anyone knew what was wrong and if it was repairable.

Thanks

[e-berlin]

have you tried the latest ORIGINAL drivers for both the GPU and the displays?

Edited January 30, 2009 by e-berlin

[alman84]

have you tried the latest ORIGINAL drivers for both the GPU and the displays?

Took me a while to find it, but I'm downloading and trying it now

EDIT: I tried that, but it didn't work. That would make sense because I get the stripe even when there's no input (like if I switch the monitor input to S-Video, the screen is black but the stripe is still there even though there's no source)

Edited January 30, 2009 by alman84

[e-berlin]

have you tried the latest ORIGINAL drivers for both the GPU and the displays?

Took me a while to find it, but I'm downloading and trying it now

EDIT: I tried that, but it didn't work. That would make sense because I get the stripe even when there's no input (like if I switch the monitor input to S-Video, the screen is black but the stripe is still there even though there's no source)

waste the monitors, man

[alman84]

Found this http://www.fixya.com/support/t139781-pink_stripe

Gonna give that a try, anyone taken apart a Dell monitor before?

[nitroshift]

What happens if you move the monitors a few inches away from each other?

[alman84]

What happens if you move the monitors a few inches away from each other?

Nothing - I actually plugged the monitor in on my tool workbench (away from the other monitor) and still got the stripes, but only after plugging in a VGA cable. I'm guessing that means there's something wrong with the VGA internals, but taking the whole thing apart didn't help. I just 2x checked all connections and didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but I've still got the stripe. We ordered some new monitors so I think we're just gonna throw it away. It was worth a try - it was a nice monitor. Thanks for the suggestions guys.

[puntoMX]

Clean the contacts of the flatcable that goes into the mainboard connector with a pensile eraser. If that doesn´t help than push gently on the top of the LCD screen itself when you have the screen apart. It´s most likely a failure of the contact strip on top of the screen and with some pressure you can get it to work again, however this will be not for long as the contacts will oxidate over time.

If it´s the contact strip on top of the LCD than it failed due to heat or bad contacts (the glue that has been used cracked). I don´t know how old those screens are, but if you have 3 of them and they are bought less than 3 years ago than Dell needs to replace/repair them for free as the life expectations of those screens are 3 to 5 years (This does not apply in every country/state, but it´s worth to check with a lawyer or 2 ). By the way, this doesn't count of you tried to repair it yourself...

[Gibby]

...but taking the whole thing apart didn't help. I just 2x checked all connections and didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but I've still got the stripe. We ordered some new monitors so I think we're just gonna throw it away. It was worth a try - it was a nice monitor. Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Some of these monitors had problems with bad capacitors on the power supply. This wouldn't apply if it has an external brick for power. If the power cord runs directly into the back of the monitor, then the power supply circiut is inside the back of the monitor.

It probably wouldn't help you at this point, but it would be interesting to know if your monitors had that particular problem. You can see if the capacitors had this problem just by looking at the top of them. Some examples are shown here. The ones to look at inside the monitor will be the largest ones, and anything physically close to the big aluminum heatsinks.

Replacing bad caps isn't too difficult. I doubt you would want to break out a soldering iron to replace components as part of your job, but if you're going to scrap them out anyway... Might make a nice monitor at home.

I'm in the process of recapping a Samsung SyncMaster 204B. These don't get the pink stripe. The monitor just takes longer and longer to get bright when it's powered on. Eventually it won't come up at all. Different monitors exhibit all kinds of unusual problems when the power supply is failing, so this is just a guess. I have not heard of the pink stripe necessarily being a bad internal power supply, but a lot of the large Dell monitors were manufactured with bad power caps and start failing with all kinds of interesting artifacts on the screen.

[alman84]

Thanks for the replies! We've already ordered new monitors, but we're keeping the old monitors to see if we can fix them anyway. I popped open one of the monitors about a week ago, but I didn't really do much investigative work - just re-connected the ribbons and wires. That capacitor info is kind of disheartening - of course, I should expect something like that from Dell We've got a soldering iron here in the office, and if we find that's the problem, replacing them will of course be easy. Again, thanks for the suggestions.