Great News!!!

BOISE LCD IS NOW AN 

What does this mean? 
If you have an RCA TV that needs service, it can be done here in Boise with the same great quality and technical experience found at other RCA Service Centers across the nation... only much, much faster!!!

BenQ FP71G

SYMPTOM: 
Power LED would illuminate and the monitor wold turn on and off like it should, but the picture would only flash for a brief moment.


PROBLEM:
CCFL backlights were not lighting up. Plugging in an external set of known good CCFL's indicated that all 4 light ports were getting the same amount of power before they all 4 would shut off. This was apparent  because they all would get about 1/4 of the way illuminated. Think of them as progress bars. If one of them was less than the others, chances are that the problem would be found in that particular light's circuitry. Since all 4 were the same, the problem must be the power coming into the inverter portion of the board. Like if normal operating voltage was 12v, if you only dumped 5v into the circuit it would barely power up and then the integrated failsafe circuitry would tell the whole inverter to shut down because there is a problem somewhere. 


SOLUTION:
This one was a real booger. There's a fuse that controls the power into the inverter section. Usually if it goes out, it will be open and therefore no power gets through it at all. That is the purpose of a fuse, after all. So of course it was the last thing I checked, as I could see that there was some power getting to the lights. So after recapping the whole board, changing all of the inverter IC's and poly caps, and even trying a few other transformers in place of some that looked suspicious (even though I knew better, as a bad transformer would be indicated by the external CCFL test I did), I finally started probing for power while it was live (my least favorite thing to do, I'm a little girl when it comes to getting shocked!).  The input side of the fuse was a steady 18v, the other side was jumping around, 5v up to 8v, 11v, 3v. "How very fucking odd", I thought to myself. Oops I cussed. Oh well, nobody reads this anyway. I just do it for the SEO purposes on my web site, lots of text about fixing monitors gives Google a boner. So back to the monitor, I replaced the fuse anyway, still not believing what my meter was telling me. It was indeed the problem. I celebrated by doing a modernized version of an old Indian "Rain Dance".  This new version includes shaking/slapping my booty like a Chip and Dales dancer. It's pretty cool. 

MicronPC F1700

SYMPTOM: 
Flashing green power LED's on both the monitor and on the external power brick.

PROBLEM:
External 12v power supply was shot.


SOLUTION:
Replaced Main Cap (120uF-400v), a smaller 470uF-25v that was swollen, and the large green square poly cap (300v, 474J). I happened to have the parts lying around, and the inquisitive nature to open it up in the first place. 


Others might find it easier to just get a new external 12v power brick. You can find them at most second hand stores for about $5, or new on ebay (from China) for $12. I recommend getting the one from your local second hand thrift store. Keep those dollars in the US!!!

Dell 1907FPc

SYMPTOM:
No power


PROBLEM:
Plastic power button not making contact with the actual button on the board behind it. 
OR 
It's stuck in the depressed position.


Notice how it doesn't "click" anymore like the other 4 buttons do?


SOLUTION:
This all depends on your abilities, or your laziness. The front bezel needs to come off to get to the buttons, but even then, the plastic button is snapped off the molded plastic. So you have to get creative with some glue or something. 




Or, if you just want your damn monitor to turn on again without having to rip it apart, take a pair of pliers and hold a sewing needle under a flame for a few seconds. Then very carefully stab the middle of the power button. Sometimes the button is just stuck in the depressed position, so you want to try to pull it back out. 

Others have used a drill to make a small hole to the side of the button and then pull it back out. More info can be found at en.community.dell.com/ forums/t/18671898.aspx 


***** Update *****
Save yourself some time just remove the plastic button altogether. Glue won't last. With the plastic button removed, you will see the button board. Just use something to poke in there and push the little button when you want to turn your monitor on.

Planar PL1910M-BK

SYMPTOM:
Flashing LED, No Picture

PROBLEM:
Monitor is in faulted state from power spike (supposedly). I think they put a little bit of coding in the firmware to make a certain % of their monitors do this after XXX amount of days. There is little no no documentation explaining how to recover from this supposed Fail-Safe Mode. There is nothing on the screen saying "HEY, THIS MONITOR IS IN PROTECTION MODE. PRESS & HOLD THESE BUTTONS TO FIX." 
I wonder why they wouldn't make it say that? 


Don't they know that most people won't know how to bring it back from the failure mode?


 Don't they know that most people don't have time to screw around and call tech support or find another PC to use to try and uncover some hidden documentation about how to bring their monitor back to life? 


Don't they know that most people will just throw this monitor away and go buy a new one? 


YES, THEY DO KNOW THIS.


THIS IS THE INTENTION.   



SOLUTION:
WITH THE MONITOR UNPLUGGED, PRESS & HOLD THE TWO BUTTONS TO THE LEFT OF THE POWER BUTTON. WHILE STILL HOLDING THE BUTTONS DOWN, PLUG IT IN. THE LED WILL FLASH GREEN, AMBER, GREEN, AMBER, GREEN, AMBER. AT THIS POINT, RELEASE THE TWO BUTTONS. 


THIS MIGHT TAKE A FEW TRIES TO GET IT RIGHT, 
BUT IT WILL COME BACK ON.


I PROMISE YOU.