For the last several months before it died I’ve definitely been able to hear the hum of a capacitor about to blow. However it only ever hummed if my PC was in sleep mode or off so I just always had it running doing something. It would turn on and off with the flashing of the monitors power switch. My guess is that the capacitor finally gave up the ghost.
My concern at this point is whether I can replace it myself or I need to get a new one.
Are there any sites that tell me how I might be able to do this. Even a simple walkthrough would be nice, though I think if it’s possible I might be able to replace the capacitor myself. My soldering skills are rusty though
I’ll be letting the capacitor slowly discharge first so I don’t die
-If not are there any good 23’’ replacement monitors I should be looking at for gaming? Price is a factor.
I just replaced the caps in my 21" gateway a couple of months ago. About 75 cents in parts vs buying a new monitor that could rotate to page view, figured it was the cheapest route.
It’s pretty easy to pull them apart and get to the PSU and check the caps there. You might find you get a bit of a whine when you put it back together and scuff the edges a bit prying it open but I did mine without a walk-through.
Just make sure your soldering iron tins properly still because if it’s not you’ll need to pick up a new one (ran in to that problem myself). My suggestion is pull it apart, check the caps to see what ones need to be replaced, even if it’s just one out of the 7 or 8 caps for it if they’re all the same you should replace the whole bank of them because they’ll come from the same lot and eventually fail.
I spent about 2-3 hours in total pulling apart, and replacing. Took one of the caps with me to the store to get the new ones to make sure I didn’t buy the wrong ones.
My 226BW I just gave up on as well; it goes into a continual flicker stage when you power it on. Started out to be a few seconds, then a few minutes, hours, and finally many, many days. If you left it on, it stayed fine… turn it off and it goes back to the flicker. Good thing I don’t have seizures.
And it’s 4 months beyond 3 years. Argh.
Am getting a LG W2453V-PF 24" on order from Newegg, due in tomorrow. Went with a slightly cheaper model than the other one I was looking at, an Asus, which are surprisingly highly-rated in the monitor market. Cost for both are around $220 (the LG I got with a coupon).
I have no idea how old the monitor is, I no longer have the receipt. Well actually for the one it’s 10 days past 3 years looking at the newegg history but for the recent one I have 4 more months going by memory, but I don’t have a receipt. And in fact the American version is telling me I purchased it on the 29 of December 07, but I still need a receipt.
Edit: And in any case when I try to fill out the form I get a Page Not Found error.\
Also newegg doesn’t sell those in Canada =(
Edit: Oh god I kept all the papers from when I built the computer, 8 days ago 3 years ago today, but not the new monitor. FRAZZLERACKET!
For what it’s worth I’ve had a Viewsonic now for getting on 5+ years and it’s still as sharp, beautiful and functional as ever. I recommend them as a replacement brand.
I had a Viewsonic LCD that developed a bad case of the sparkles. But it was a nice monitor while it lasted. Thankfully, Costco will take monitors back years after the fact.
My 226BW would start showing a black screen if I launched games that switched the resolution. The solution was to turn it off for a moment and let it cool off/rest/whatever before turning it on again, but the problem got worse over time and soon a moment turned into ten minutes. This started happening after 3 and a half years. I got a new monitor but I’m still thinking about replacing the capacitors on the 226. I just haven’t gotten around to it because I’ve handled a soldering iron all of twice in my life so I’m not feeling too confident.
