> After 9 years of heavy use my vp171b monitor started to show some smears, > starting with white letters on black, usually only after the cold start, > slowly self-healing. After a few weeks it became unbearable and screen > became really fuzzy and annoying.
Yup, exactly what I saw when mine started going for real.
> You advise exchanging "main board capacitors". There are three printed > boards, two looking professionally done and one being a product of a cottage > industry or worse.
Ha ha, power supply boards always tend to look 'cottage industry' since they have to be made of much heavier components on beefier boards.
> The cheap one is, let's call it, a power supply.
Yup, not cheap, just very different looking. I've never had any trouble with any of the PSU boards.
> My monitor always powered up instantly and never made any noise. My nose > doesn't see a culprit in the power supply but with electrolytes one never > knows.
The electrolytics that fail are on the resampler board. They don't visibly burst or make any mess, they just go bad. I couldn't see any problem until I pulled them one by one and put them on a tester.
> Do you suggest changing the capacitors > a) in this board or > b)the gazillion caps in the "center board" or, > c) on all other two boards, the HV one as well.
I've not had either the inverter or PSU board caps degrade. The culprit caps in my three monitors were all on the central resampler board.
Since yours are 9 years old, you're probably going to have to replace the backlight tubes soon too :-| The inverters on these are pretty beefy, so when the backlight finally goes, it's the tube wearing out not the inverter.
Re: viewsonic vp171b
Date: 2013-01-14 07:48 pm (UTC)> starting with white letters on black, usually only after the cold start,
> slowly self-healing. After a few weeks it became unbearable and screen
> became really fuzzy and annoying.
Yup, exactly what I saw when mine started going for real.
> You advise exchanging "main board capacitors". There are three printed
> boards, two looking professionally done and one being a product of a cottage
> industry or worse.
Ha ha, power supply boards always tend to look 'cottage industry'
since they have to be made of much heavier components on beefier
boards.
> The cheap one is, let's call it, a power supply.
Yup, not cheap, just very different looking. I've never had any
trouble with any of the PSU boards.
> My monitor always powered up instantly and never made any noise. My nose
> doesn't see a culprit in the power supply but with electrolytes one never
> knows.
The electrolytics that fail are on the resampler board. They don't
visibly burst or make any mess, they just go bad. I couldn't see any problem until I pulled them one by one and put them on a tester.
> Do you suggest changing the capacitors
> a) in this board or
> b)the gazillion caps in the "center board" or,
> c) on all other two boards, the HV one as well.
I've not had either the inverter or PSU board caps degrade. The
culprit caps in my three monitors were all on the central resampler
board.
Since yours are 9 years old, you're probably going to have to replace
the backlight tubes soon too :-| The inverters on these are pretty
beefy, so when the backlight finally goes, it's the tube wearing out
not the inverter.