R
Roy J. Tellason
Guest
Ok, so reading a bunch of FAQs to refresh my memory and reading some of the
posts in here where I understood most of what was going on actually got me
to the point where I felt like I might want to tackle one or more of those
monitors I have sitting here. So last night I opened one up...
This one's the NEC Multisync 3D, with vertical problems.
Okay, only 3 screws to get the back off! Cool, that could've been lots
worse...
Uh-oh. All I see is sheet metal all over the place. (Looking around) It
appears that the stuff on one side is a LV switcher or something? And the
other side appears to be for processing the input cable signals, I guess I
need the board at the bottom...
Back when I last did this for a living, I had two "shop lights" hanging
over my bench, and I had an actual bench to work on, lots more room than
the 2 foot square of empty space I have on my desk at present. Lots more
light than the 60W bulb on the end of an arm that won't seem to stay aimed
where I want it...
24 screws later, and heaven only knows how many connectors unplugged, I've
got bits hanging off both the front and back of my desk. Got the bottom
board out, got the vertical chip ID'd (It's an LA7835 in case anybody was
wondering), crossed it in the ECG book, and got the pinouts, not that
they make a whole lot of sense to me in some isntances. And somebody said
that this was probably a cap, anyway. It took me a while to get that
number, there seem to be bits strategically placed in my way so that it's
harder to read than it could be. And that stupid light keeps on moving,
pointing *away* frmo the monitor and leaving things in shadow.
I'm wondering where the heck my soldering iron *is* (either of the two of
them I have), and where I'm going to put it in this mess while it warms
up, and what I'm going to use to power my cap checker, since for sure I
don't have 4 C batteries on hand, and as seldom as I use the darn thing
I'm not going to be putting a set in there.
I don't think I have one of these chips on hand in my junkbox, or my
(former shop) inventory, so I'd have to go out and buy one, and leave
this thing in the condition it's in while I did, and then install the
sucker. And see if that worked, which means putting this thing all the
way back together, or at least mostly. And then going through all of that
over again if the chip didn't do it, and shotgunning caps in the vertical
area, once I got to the point where I could figure out which ones *were*
in the vertical area, since it's hard for me to see those traces,
compared to how easy it used to be.
Not only did I have that pair of shop lights but I also had a lighted
magnifier, about the time I closed up the shop. And it's not handy now,
no place to clamp it to.
This is starting to look *real* tedious, with all of the reassembly and
re-disassembly it's starting to look like it's gonna take. And then I
can't *see* the stuff I used to be able to -- nothing much important, just
things like chip numbers, traces on the board, and so forth, that you
need to be able to see in order to do this at all.
Why was it I stopped doing this again? Oh yeah... NOW I'm starting to
remember. I guess I just needed a little refresher there, or something.
Not to mention time. The FAQs keep saying that your time is free, as
compared to having to pay somebody for it. I know that doing this for a
living I'd hit stuff like this and could *never* recover the cost of the
actual time it took to get in there and do stuff, and that was assuming
that I got it fixed the first time around, that it was something fairly
simple and straightforward. Which doesn't appear to be the case for much
in the way of monitors any more. Is *any* of this stuff made to be more
repairable?
Guess I'll just put this back together now, and look for an alternative way
of dealing with it. At least I'm only dealing with two kinds of screws,
not a whole mess of different kinds. I *HATE* engineers that do that kind
of crap! Maybe if I'm lucky I'll find somebody who's willing to give me
one good monitor and fix the other two for themselves, like I did once
before (the one I ended up with that time would only do 640x480, though
it's still on the w98 box here). We'll see. Or maybe I'll just pitch 'em,
as I've scrapped out enough stuff over the years that I finally reached the
point where I figure I have *more than enough* parts for any hobby stuff
I'm ever gonna do...
And as for the rest of you guys that are going to continue to work on this
stuff for a living: Good luck! I wish you well...
posts in here where I understood most of what was going on actually got me
to the point where I felt like I might want to tackle one or more of those
monitors I have sitting here. So last night I opened one up...
This one's the NEC Multisync 3D, with vertical problems.
Okay, only 3 screws to get the back off! Cool, that could've been lots
worse...
Uh-oh. All I see is sheet metal all over the place. (Looking around) It
appears that the stuff on one side is a LV switcher or something? And the
other side appears to be for processing the input cable signals, I guess I
need the board at the bottom...
Back when I last did this for a living, I had two "shop lights" hanging
over my bench, and I had an actual bench to work on, lots more room than
the 2 foot square of empty space I have on my desk at present. Lots more
light than the 60W bulb on the end of an arm that won't seem to stay aimed
where I want it...
24 screws later, and heaven only knows how many connectors unplugged, I've
got bits hanging off both the front and back of my desk. Got the bottom
board out, got the vertical chip ID'd (It's an LA7835 in case anybody was
wondering), crossed it in the ECG book, and got the pinouts, not that
they make a whole lot of sense to me in some isntances. And somebody said
that this was probably a cap, anyway. It took me a while to get that
number, there seem to be bits strategically placed in my way so that it's
harder to read than it could be. And that stupid light keeps on moving,
pointing *away* frmo the monitor and leaving things in shadow.
I'm wondering where the heck my soldering iron *is* (either of the two of
them I have), and where I'm going to put it in this mess while it warms
up, and what I'm going to use to power my cap checker, since for sure I
don't have 4 C batteries on hand, and as seldom as I use the darn thing
I'm not going to be putting a set in there.
I don't think I have one of these chips on hand in my junkbox, or my
(former shop) inventory, so I'd have to go out and buy one, and leave
this thing in the condition it's in while I did, and then install the
sucker. And see if that worked, which means putting this thing all the
way back together, or at least mostly. And then going through all of that
over again if the chip didn't do it, and shotgunning caps in the vertical
area, once I got to the point where I could figure out which ones *were*
in the vertical area, since it's hard for me to see those traces,
compared to how easy it used to be.
Not only did I have that pair of shop lights but I also had a lighted
magnifier, about the time I closed up the shop. And it's not handy now,
no place to clamp it to.
This is starting to look *real* tedious, with all of the reassembly and
re-disassembly it's starting to look like it's gonna take. And then I
can't *see* the stuff I used to be able to -- nothing much important, just
things like chip numbers, traces on the board, and so forth, that you
need to be able to see in order to do this at all.
Why was it I stopped doing this again? Oh yeah... NOW I'm starting to
remember. I guess I just needed a little refresher there, or something.
Not to mention time. The FAQs keep saying that your time is free, as
compared to having to pay somebody for it. I know that doing this for a
living I'd hit stuff like this and could *never* recover the cost of the
actual time it took to get in there and do stuff, and that was assuming
that I got it fixed the first time around, that it was something fairly
simple and straightforward. Which doesn't appear to be the case for much
in the way of monitors any more. Is *any* of this stuff made to be more
repairable?
Guess I'll just put this back together now, and look for an alternative way
of dealing with it. At least I'm only dealing with two kinds of screws,
not a whole mess of different kinds. I *HATE* engineers that do that kind
of crap! Maybe if I'm lucky I'll find somebody who's willing to give me
one good monitor and fix the other two for themselves, like I did once
before (the one I ended up with that time would only do 640x480, though
it's still on the w98 box here). We'll see. Or maybe I'll just pitch 'em,
as I've scrapped out enough stuff over the years that I finally reached the
point where I figure I have *more than enough* parts for any hobby stuff
I'm ever gonna do...
And as for the rest of you guys that are going to continue to work on this
stuff for a living: Good luck! I wish you well...
I think I'd