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Do all aperature grill monitors' grills vibrate (making noise!)?

Muse

Muse

Lifer
I ordered my NEC FP2141 22" aperature grill monitor almost a year ago and I'd like to know if it's defective or not. If the room's pretty quiet (no music, etc.) I can hear a noise coming from the monitor when I walk across the floor and it really annoys me. The loudness is in proportion to how heavily I'm walking/pounding the floor with my shoes. This is with the monitor NOT plugged in even, much less turned on!

The sound is a bit hard to describe - maybe something like the sound a drummer would evoke by swirling his steel brushes round and round the top of his cymbals. I'm almost convinced that the sound results from the vibrations of the aperature grill.

Is this "normal" or do I have a legitimate complaint for an RMA or whatever? Or is this possibly an idiosyncracy of the NEC/Mitsubishi FP2141? Or do all the aperature grill monitors have this characteristic?

I sure hear if but I've never "heard of it," so I thought I'd ask if anyone knows what I'm talking about. Thanks.
 
Hey Muse

Since we have the same monitor (and bought them at the same time) I can tell you how mine sounds. My monitor sits on a desk that stands on carpet, so when I walk normally very little vibration is transferred to the monitor and I hear nothing most of the time. When I pound on the desk, though, I can hear the monitor ring. It's not loud and it goes away quickly, but I can hear it. It sounds like a drummer lightly hitting a cymbal with the brushes (our drum set is in the basement 🙂). I'd rig up something different for the base of the monitor to sit on. I've done the same thing with the fans in my Lian-Li aluminum case (using little rubber washers at the four fan attachment points to dampen the noise made by the fans shaking the body of the case when they spin). I don't know if any of that helps.
 
Well when you it gets a vibration like that it could cause the wires to vibrate and the picture to distort. Usually you just hear about the sound that the monitor makes when you turn it on.
 
Originally posted by: Viper96720
Must be those 2 faint wires vibrating
Click to expand...

Thanks for the responses. Somehow I didn't get email notification that there were any responses to this thread! Weird! I just came back to have a look and bump and voila, 7 responses. I guess I forgot to subscribe when I made the original post. I think it should be a default when you originate a thread that you should be subscribed, no? You can always uncheck that box, gosh.

I don't think the noise is those two horizontal wires. It's more likely the whole grill. I guess I'll contact NEC and ask about it before the one year anniversary of the monitor's purchase, which is in 5 days. Can't hurt I guess. The best suggestion I've gotten, I think, is to put a piece of carpet under the base of the display. I guess a thick shag carpet that will dampen the impulse when I do the Tyrannosaurus Rex dance in this room. 😀

Faceless - I also have my monitor on a desk that's sitting on a carpet. It's not thick carpet and there's no sub-carpet padding, just a wood floor. Maybe it has something to do with the construction of the house. I've done the same as you wil the rubber grommeting of case fans on my PC. Don't know if it helps or not. My main PC is still not as quiet as I'd like, and I've put in low noise fans all around and a quiet PS.

That noise from the monitor's a sometime thing because I don't walk around the room a whole lot, but when I do, that noise does bother me. It's a weird noise.
 
Does the sound go away if you have the monitor on for awhile and it warmed up? If it does then it is your aperture grille wires. When the monitor heats up it expands and tightens the wire. The wires would be vibrating against the grille could make it sound like it came from the whole thing.
 
Originally posted by: Viper96720
Does the sound go away if you have the monitor on for awhile and it warmed up? If it does then it is your aperture grille wires. When the monitor heats up it expands and tightens the wire. The wires would be vibrating against the grille could make it sound like it came from the whole thing.
Click to expand...
I wasn't using it but I just plugged it in and have dual view set up with my LCD. It's been on around 20 minutes now, maybe 30, and it is still making that sound. All I have to do is raise my foot up 3 inches and drop my leg and I hear the noise for at least 5+ seconds until it fades below audible levels. That's with the normal PC noise coming from the box (fans).

I called NEC/ Mitsu support an hour ago and a technician told me it's not supposed to make noises like that and she seemed pretty emphatic about it. She said I can RMA it (the warranty, parts and labor, is for 3 years and I've had it a year). I can cross ship a refurb (credit card hold), send in for repair, or send in and then receive a refurb after they get mine. I said I'd call back with my decision. I'm not sure what I should do. A year ago a lot of them had problems and I considered myself lucky that it was as good as it was. Maybe (hopefully) they have less problems at this point. Then again, a refurb already had one problem and it could have been an early display, increasing the chances for problems (I suppose). I must say, it's not nearly as bright (or sharp) as my 19" Planar PX191 (which I got subsequently, around September), but I don't know that it was ever brighter. It seemed bright enough at the time, but I have no way of knowing if it has lost brightness or sharpness. Maybe I should just sell it and maybe get another LCD. The only reason I want to keep it is for games, but I'm not a big gamer, that's for sure. I guess somebody who's really into gaming would find it ideal.
 
If the grille was vibrating at all, especially enough for the wires to hit anything, the screen would shimmer and wave like crazy.
 
Originally posted by: Jeff7
If the grille was vibrating at all, especially enough for the wires to hit anything, the screen would shimmer and wave like crazy.
Click to expand...

I'm not detecting shimmering or waving, really, when it's making that noise. Evidently, some kinetic energy is being absorbed when I stomp on the floor (even moderately) and something is vibrating to produce that noise. I figured it was the grill but it may well be something else. I've never opened the case - I'm sure there's all manner of stuff in there.
 
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