I have been involved with a struggle with Dell for months. I bought one of their LCD's..the Dell E172FP. It worked great for about 8 months but ever since I haven't been able to use it consistently. It would always go blank (preceeded by a very bright screen)...saying it was in power save mode after about an hour of use. I had to resort back to using CRT's exclusively. It seems alot of people sing Dell's praises..but I won't. I RMA's with them 3 times....and each monitor came back with the same problem(apparently they sent out refurbs). I gave up after awhile.
I have seen countless posts on their forums with people with my problem and after months of searching I think I have finally found out why. It is apparently a common problem for many LCD displays..Dell is shipping faulty power inverters. Here is a post I found...I'm posting this for others who have had the same issue and can't figure out why. I saw this review on epinions.
=========================
This monitor was a good deal for the price...at first.
The colors, resolution, screen size, clarity, were all good. Contrast was not great, but not bad. I particularly liked the fact that you could (with a screwdriver) rotate this monitor into portrait frame (that means on it's side) which is really nice if you are typing a long document.
For just over a year (the warranty period) I was happy. Then one day it just stopped working. The picture would come on for about one second, then it would go away to be followed by a ghostly flashing screen accompanied by a flashing green power button.
At first I thought maybe a connection was bad so I did some research and took the thing apart and this is what I found:
1. The quality of the LCD itself is very good. It's a Samsung which is one of the major manufacturers of LCD technology and makes high quality stuff.
2. It has a unified Power Supply Unit (PSU) and Inverter Board (IB). By unified I mean it's all the same piece of equipment. This IB is manufactured by BenQ and is the source of all my unhappiness. And as it turns out it's the source of many people's unhappiness.
After deciding that it might be cheaper (about $200 cheaper) to fix the thing myself than to buy a new one I researched this monitor on various repair sites. It seems that the problem I am having with it is very very common. This model often works for about a year and then... blink...blink...blink.
This is what I found out on the repair forums: The problem is shoddy manufacturing by BenQ. When they made the Inverter Boards they didn't use clean electronic components, which causes the solder to separate from the legs of the various little bits and pieces which comprise electronic circuits. When the solder separates, electricity no longer flows and the equipment stops working.
They also used known poor quality parts which don't have a long useful life and often generate lots of heat. And in that sense electronics are just like your car's engine, they need to be properly cooled or else the heat will destroy them. In the case of this IB, all that heat often causes the connections between the parts to burn, the plastic casing on the parts to melt, the solder to separate even more than it would have from just the dirty parts, and it can dry out the cheap little capacitors that this board is made with.
These Inverter Boards are available from some independent companies which rebuild them, but unfortunately they can't very well re-solder every tiny piece on this badly manufactured board. So the rebuilt ones often go bad as a result of BenQ's shoddy manufacturing. To add insult to injury BenQ used an oddball transformer brand/model which is of poor quality and which none of the electronic whiz kids can identify, so it's impossible to get new replacement transformers.
To sum up: This monitor is great until it breaks (which it will) and then you are screwed unless you purchased the extended warranty. But I think now, why buy a shoddy product and then pay extra for a warranty when companies like Samsung offer high-quality electronics with built-in 3-year warranties? You pay a little more for the Samsung, but the warranty is included in the price and chances are you won't need to use the warranty.
another user talks about the problem:
http://www.fixya.com/support/t116490-monitor_shuts_off_but_green_light_stays
http://www.applefritter.com/kiwi/node/418
http://www.network54.com/Forum/87612/th...137018841/last-1141408319/DELL+E172FPB
http://www.devhardware.com/forums/compu...on-prob-with-dvi-power-save-44533.html
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sys....5b/25ef7d83d86e8b29%2325ef7d83d86e8b29
and any search on "power save" on Dell's forums will bring up the old posts
I have seen countless posts on their forums with people with my problem and after months of searching I think I have finally found out why. It is apparently a common problem for many LCD displays..Dell is shipping faulty power inverters. Here is a post I found...I'm posting this for others who have had the same issue and can't figure out why. I saw this review on epinions.
=========================
This monitor was a good deal for the price...at first.
The colors, resolution, screen size, clarity, were all good. Contrast was not great, but not bad. I particularly liked the fact that you could (with a screwdriver) rotate this monitor into portrait frame (that means on it's side) which is really nice if you are typing a long document.
For just over a year (the warranty period) I was happy. Then one day it just stopped working. The picture would come on for about one second, then it would go away to be followed by a ghostly flashing screen accompanied by a flashing green power button.
At first I thought maybe a connection was bad so I did some research and took the thing apart and this is what I found:
1. The quality of the LCD itself is very good. It's a Samsung which is one of the major manufacturers of LCD technology and makes high quality stuff.
2. It has a unified Power Supply Unit (PSU) and Inverter Board (IB). By unified I mean it's all the same piece of equipment. This IB is manufactured by BenQ and is the source of all my unhappiness. And as it turns out it's the source of many people's unhappiness.
After deciding that it might be cheaper (about $200 cheaper) to fix the thing myself than to buy a new one I researched this monitor on various repair sites. It seems that the problem I am having with it is very very common. This model often works for about a year and then... blink...blink...blink.
This is what I found out on the repair forums: The problem is shoddy manufacturing by BenQ. When they made the Inverter Boards they didn't use clean electronic components, which causes the solder to separate from the legs of the various little bits and pieces which comprise electronic circuits. When the solder separates, electricity no longer flows and the equipment stops working.
They also used known poor quality parts which don't have a long useful life and often generate lots of heat. And in that sense electronics are just like your car's engine, they need to be properly cooled or else the heat will destroy them. In the case of this IB, all that heat often causes the connections between the parts to burn, the plastic casing on the parts to melt, the solder to separate even more than it would have from just the dirty parts, and it can dry out the cheap little capacitors that this board is made with.
These Inverter Boards are available from some independent companies which rebuild them, but unfortunately they can't very well re-solder every tiny piece on this badly manufactured board. So the rebuilt ones often go bad as a result of BenQ's shoddy manufacturing. To add insult to injury BenQ used an oddball transformer brand/model which is of poor quality and which none of the electronic whiz kids can identify, so it's impossible to get new replacement transformers.
To sum up: This monitor is great until it breaks (which it will) and then you are screwed unless you purchased the extended warranty. But I think now, why buy a shoddy product and then pay extra for a warranty when companies like Samsung offer high-quality electronics with built-in 3-year warranties? You pay a little more for the Samsung, but the warranty is included in the price and chances are you won't need to use the warranty.
another user talks about the problem:
http://www.fixya.com/support/t116490-monitor_shuts_off_but_green_light_stays
http://www.applefritter.com/kiwi/node/418
http://www.network54.com/Forum/87612/th...137018841/last-1141408319/DELL+E172FPB
http://www.devhardware.com/forums/compu...on-prob-with-dvi-power-save-44533.html
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sys....5b/25ef7d83d86e8b29%2325ef7d83d86e8b29
and any search on "power save" on Dell's forums will bring up the old posts
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