Acer Monitor Repair
I was passing a charity shop the other day and I noticed a small 15" monitor in the window. As I was on the lookout for a something fairly small to take to the ABUG Scotland meet ups this looked promising. It was an Acer VGA monitor from 2004 and priced at only £2, I couldn't resist buying it.
This monitor is very similar to the two 17" monitors I just set up with my Electron Ultra's so there wasn't any risk in getting it to work with them, I just had to hope it wouldn't blow up.
I set it on my bench to give it a clean and check the fuse. I see it has been PAT tested on the 31st December 2025.. at least it should be safe enough to switch on.
I plugged it into my old Windows 7 PC to see if I get a picture. Well..it worked great for about three minutes!!
There was a small crack sound just as it lost it's picture which made me think it was a capacitor going pop! I don't normally open faulty monitors but this one felt like a challenge.. I looked online for a service manual and found one that was close enough to guide me as to how to open the case..there's always hidden screws or clips that need to be found.
Once the back was off I could easily see how to remove the chassis.
I had to remove the LCD Panel connectors and three others from the circuit board.
With the chassis removed and turned over I could see the power supply board. I removed the protective cover and four screws to release the board.
Now that the board is out I could give it a good look over for any obvious signs of failure. All I could see was two swollen capacitors both obvious candidates for removing and testing and of course there was the big 400V capacitor that should be checked.
Checking the capacitors showed they had failed, the first 470uF measured 69uF with an ESR of 5.5 ohms and the other capacitor measured 116uF with an ESR of 3.8 ohms.
The large 100uF 400V had also failed short circuit and as a result had blown the bridge rectifier. As all the electrolytic capacitors on the board are 22 years old I thought I'd remove and check them all. They checked out okay.
A total of four faulty components.
I didn't have the 100uF 400V capacitor or the bridge rectifier so I ordered them from Aliexpress.
A week or so later I fitted these parts and re-built it enough to safely switch it on.. and it worked..
I then re-attached the VGA cable and clipped the panel back together and moved it over the the Electron Ultra to test.
With the stand re-attached I am leaving it to soak for a few hours..
Well, although it failed I still think I won out in the end - £2 for the monitor and £0.65 for the parts and it didn't end up in the recycling.
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