Soyo Topaz contrast suddenly out of whack (with pictures)

[Yuriman]

About 2 weeks ago my Soyo Topaz suddenly went "weird". I'm not certain what exactly is off, but it looks like the contrast suddenly became very, very high and the colors have become oversaturated. I have attached pictures below of the Soyo vs my BenQ.


Soyo:

BenQ:

The effect is more exaggerated in-person, brightness has to be set at half of what it was for my eyes not to bleed and no amount of OSD or software adjustment has been able to compensate for it fully. Any ideas on what might cause this? I've tried different inputs/cables and different computers, it's seemingly the screen itself.

 

[Eureka]

Did it switch graphics mode? I know on my monitor (Dell 2407WFP), there are two modes, graphics and video... and they are calibrated extremely far off from each other.

 

[Yuriman]

There's no modes, it's an extremely simple OSD. I tried resetting the OSD to factory defaults and it didn't fix anything.

Also, it seems like it looks almost normal when it first comes on, and over a period of a few minutes it gradually brightens and becomes more contrasty/saturated.

 

[Stuka87]

Did you try setting it back to factory defaults?

EDIT: Posted at same time as OP's response

EDIT EDIT: Try switching inputs between your two displays, asuming one is like, VGA and one is DVI/DP.

 

[Yuriman]

Did you try setting it back to factory defaults?

EDIT: Posted at same time as OP's response

EDIT EDIT: Try switching inputs between your two displays, asuming one is like, VGA and one is DVI/DP.

I have, it's unrelated to the inputs.

EDIT: I've tried the screen on two computers, and with DVI and VGA on both.

 

[kmmatney]

I had some weird issues with my Topaz several months ago. The symptoms were that the contrast would suddenly go out of whack (the screen would "white-out") and other times the picture would go black and come back on. From research online told me it was probably the power supply, to I took it apart, and sure enough there was a blown capacitor on the power PCB. I bought a repair kit for the Soyo Topaz on Ebay ($13 I think). I planned on replacing all the caps, but this was just too much work as my PCB had large heatsinks glued to transistors. Pictures I've seen of Topaz PCB didn't have these heatsinks, so repairing mine is much harder than PCBs without the heatsinks. Luckily, I was "just" able to replace the blown capacitor without removing anything else, and that alone fixed the problem. So out of the 17 or so capacitors in the kit, I only used one of them, but that fixed it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Repair-Kit-...Monitor_Replacement_Parts&hash=item4cf352995a

here is the link. The picture shows a PCB without heatsinks, and all the capactitors easily accessible. On my PCB there were large heatsinks that are not easy to remove, so access to most capacitors was limited.

 

[kmmatney]

FYI - The capacitor that was blown on mine was the large one on the upper right of the picture in the Ebay link. It can be removed and replaced while keeping the heatsink in place. The Topaz is easily taken apart, and you can look for any blown capacitors.

 

[FalseChristian]

That really sucks when a monitor goes especially when you didn't really want to buy another one. My old 19" Samsung did the same thing. It just got worse over time.

I'm afraid you'll have to buy a new monitor.

 

[Yuriman]

FYI - The capacitor that was blown on mine was the large one on the upper right of the picture in the Ebay link. It can be removed and replaced while keeping the heatsink in place. The Topaz is easily taken apart, and you can look for any blown capacitors.

Appreciated! I'll give it a try. Worst case, it doesn't work.

 

[gorobei]

did you accidentally turn on the enhanced image mode?

there are some preset functions on the buttons, one activates a high contrast mode. the osd options allow you to specify size/zone, i think it creates a exponential LUT effect for video watching. i had mine set to a small pip section so it was always recognizable when it was on.

my soyo psu crapped out so i cant tell you which button controls it.

 

[Yuriman]

did you accidentally turn on the enhanced image mode?

there are some preset functions on the buttons, one activates a high contrast mode. the osd options allow you to specify size/zone, i think it creates a exponential LUT effect for video watching. i had mine set to a small pip section so it was always recognizable when it was on.

my soyo psu crapped out so i cant tell you which button controls it.

It's the one on the bottom and no, highlight mode isn't enabled.