- Apr 20, 2003
- 32,236
- 53
- 91
So my friend's 17" LCD Dell monitor died and he ended up buying a nice Samsung 22" to replace it. He was going to toss the old one but I asked if I could have it so he gave it to me.
I googled the model number (E172fpb) and found tons of information on the problem it had (would turn on for a second, then turn back off). It turns out that for some reason one of the transistors would overload and short. The reason for the overload is unclear but the general consensus seems to be that one of the transformers fails and then damages the transistor.
Since it's impossible to get a replacement transformer (assuming that's even the cause of the problem) I decided to create a workaround. I bought a similar transistor from Radio Shack that is larger in size to replace the old one. I soldered in the new transistor (and cut the metal housing to make it fit) and turned on the monitor and it worked.
However, after about a minute or two the transistor got piping hot! I knew it would quickly fail if I left it like this, so I returned to radio shack and bought a heatsink.
Board with heatsink mounted on new transistor - you can see how much bigger the replacement is compared to the original.
heatsink 2
The heatsink worked well, but I ran into a problem; the heatsink stuck out too far and I could not reinstall the monitor cover. So and got out a hand saw and:
cut
and cut some more.
Tada, the cover now fits!
I've been running the monitor for over 8 hours now and so far so good. The heatsink gets warm, but not hot, so it appears that it is doing it's job.
Final product
2
Total cost: $4
Labor: ~3 hours
I googled the model number (E172fpb) and found tons of information on the problem it had (would turn on for a second, then turn back off). It turns out that for some reason one of the transistors would overload and short. The reason for the overload is unclear but the general consensus seems to be that one of the transformers fails and then damages the transistor.
Since it's impossible to get a replacement transformer (assuming that's even the cause of the problem) I decided to create a workaround. I bought a similar transistor from Radio Shack that is larger in size to replace the old one. I soldered in the new transistor (and cut the metal housing to make it fit) and turned on the monitor and it worked.
However, after about a minute or two the transistor got piping hot! I knew it would quickly fail if I left it like this, so I returned to radio shack and bought a heatsink.
Board with heatsink mounted on new transistor - you can see how much bigger the replacement is compared to the original.
heatsink 2
The heatsink worked well, but I ran into a problem; the heatsink stuck out too far and I could not reinstall the monitor cover. So and got out a hand saw and:
cut
and cut some more.
Tada, the cover now fits!
I've been running the monitor for over 8 hours now and so far so good. The heatsink gets warm, but not hot, so it appears that it is doing it's job.
Final product
2
Total cost: $4
Labor: ~3 hours
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