[ale] Can Bad Video Settings Fry LCD Monitors?

Thu Oct 31 09:35:51 EDT 2013

Dell had a massive recall on OptiPlex GX270 workstations around that timeframe with the same thing.  We had so many of them (thousands of them!) that they actually shipped bulk quantities of motherboards to our campus and let our Dell certified techs replace them.  If I remember correctly, they just proactively replaced them all.

I'm glad to hear that there are still some electronics repair shops in business out there :)
Allen B.

--
Allen Beddingfield
Systems Engineer
The University of Alabama
________________________________
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [ale-bounces at ale.org] on behalf of David Stephens [linuxrootuser at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 7:46 AM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] Can Bad Video Settings Fry LCD Monitors?

I work in a small electronics repair shop here in Atlanta. As of late we are seeing  a lot of gear suffering from failed capacitors, most are smt devices. It is one thing to have failed capacitors in a home computer/laptop since generally people upgrade systems on a regular basis as speeds/capacities increase.

Musical instruments are another story. People don't want to "upgrade" an electric piano that cost $5,000 to $15,000, every five years. The only solution is a complete re-cap job. The process is not difficult, but it is time consuming. Use Chip Quik to remove the failed capacitor, clean the trace pads of all corrosion, inspect with a microscope, position new capacitor, solder new capacitor and re-inspect, repeat for the remaining 99 capacitors.

I suspect that there are more than a few servers running in data centers that are 2002 - 2005 vintage machines with the same failing capacitors on the motherboards. The effects of these failing capacitors will most likely be attributed to "bit rot".  Modern error correction can reduce the bit rot, however, when bit rot is generated by noise on the bus data and bus lines and supply lines feeding the error correcting circuits there isn't much that can correct the problem.

We recently recapped several old IBM workstations, we're cheap and tend to hold on to shop gear, until the magic smoke escapes. The recaps worked: boot times returned to like new speeds, the systems actually shutdown when you asked them too, and the blue screens of death and kernel panics went away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 9:46 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com<mailto:atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com>> wrote:
Hi all,

I just had a wild thought after reading an article in computer power user magazine about liquid electrolytic versus solid electrolyte capacitors.  As you may know, many modern motherboards use Japanese solid electrolytic capacitors to increase quality and reliability.

I already knew that.  What I didn't know is that, around 2002, the industry started experiencing waves of returns / complaints about defective motherboards due to a bad batch of capacitors with unstable electrolyte compounds.  This caused a great deal of trouble above and beyond the normal failure rate, and severely disrupted the industry.

http://www.computerpoweruser.com/DigitalIssues/ComputerPowerUser/CP____1311__/

Like I said, long shot, wild thought.  But, maybe, if your monitors are several years old and of similar vintage, they're all starting to experience premature death.  This could be an outside factor that could affect many units with nothing obviously in common but time of manufacture.  The article says this affected monitors, network switches, a/v equipment, and other things.

In any case, I thought it was interesting.

Sincerely,

Ron

Aaron Ruscetta <arxaaron at gmail.com<mailto:arxaaron at gmail.com>> wrote:

>RESOLUTION:
>(pun in tended)
>
>Thanks to everyone for the feedback.  I had tested these monitors
>with known good sources, both VGA and (where supported on the
>Veiwsonic) DVI to confirm they were dead before asking here.
>Sorry I didn't make that clear.
>
>The replies confirmed my understanding that the circuitry on any
>newer LCD monitor would simply reject any out of spec signals,
>but the supporting opinions were extremely helpful.  I'll just throw
>another spare monitor at my housemate's system and hope it
>lasts for a while. Embarrassingly, I still have 3 more 17" and
>2 ea. 15" units that he can choose from, in addition to an old
>school Mac G3 era monitor.
>
>in peace,
>aaron
>
>
>[-: scissors of courteous file size awareness :-]
>
>

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Ron Frazier
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