Help me fix an intermittent monitor fault
October 13, 2013 2:12 AM Subscribe
My husband and I bought two monitors a little over 12 months ago. They worked just fine for 6 months when his developed an intermittent fault. Essentially, the screen abruptly goes static-y and weird, and horrible noise comes out the speakers - I guess it should be described as interference. None of the controls work and it has to be powered down and back on again. Two months after his started going wrong, mine did too - exactly the same way.
The monitors are both Kogan brand (never again!!) LED 24 inch dual use tv/monitors and both were running in VGA mode at 1980x1020 @ 60hz (the only option they seemed to have) when the problems started . He is running a linux box and mine is windows. He has a second monitor (Samsung, no problems) and I have just this one. Neither of us have changed anything in our setups, our office OR our house between them working perfectly to when the fault started.
Things that we've tried:
- changing power supplies
- changing cables (running VGA, tried HDMI)
- changing power points, power boards and power cables
- dusting, cleaning, and re-seating all the plugs and cables
Mine started to fail less frequently for some reason when I unplugged everything and replugged it, but - after the power-supply in my case blew and had to be replaced - everything's back to shit again and no amount of fiddling seems to help.
Kogan's help desk hasn't and I am loathe to shelve two otherwise perfectly good (although cheap!) monitors and buy a third.
Can anyone suggest what is happening and what I can try to fix it? I'll try animal sacrifice at this point if you think it might help.
The monitors are both Kogan brand (never again!!) LED 24 inch dual use tv/monitors and both were running in VGA mode at 1980x1020 @ 60hz (the only option they seemed to have) when the problems started . He is running a linux box and mine is windows. He has a second monitor (Samsung, no problems) and I have just this one. Neither of us have changed anything in our setups, our office OR our house between them working perfectly to when the fault started.
Things that we've tried:
- changing power supplies
- changing cables (running VGA, tried HDMI)
- changing power points, power boards and power cables
- dusting, cleaning, and re-seating all the plugs and cables
Mine started to fail less frequently for some reason when I unplugged everything and replugged it, but - after the power-supply in my case blew and had to be replaced - everything's back to shit again and no amount of fiddling seems to help.
Kogan's help desk hasn't and I am loathe to shelve two otherwise perfectly good (although cheap!) monitors and buy a third.
Can anyone suggest what is happening and what I can try to fix it? I'll try animal sacrifice at this point if you think it might help.
Best answer: Wow. Sounds like a breed weakness to me.
You've done everything I would (and I do this kind of thing a lot.)
You've eliminated the computer (AND the OS!), power bricks, power connectors, and you have evidence that the fault is corrected by power down/reinitialization. You've isolated the problem to a single brand AND you've got the same problem in two units with probably very similar date codes. Finally, it's an off brand.
My informed (second hand) guess? Bad choice of monitors. You know what to do.
(If I owned two like this, i'd have them apart and have monitor leads soldered on to power supply traced internally and i'd find the set's processor and the reset circuit. i'd have a lead soldered to that and a switch to allow me to reset it when an upset occurred. if it worked, i'd try to associate the specific supply (there are usually multiple internal DC voltages) and if could do that, perhaps attempt a fix. Unless you are equipped for this extreme, it's replacement time, I fear.)
posted by FauxScot at 6:02 AM on October 13, 2013
You've done everything I would (and I do this kind of thing a lot.)
You've eliminated the computer (AND the OS!), power bricks, power connectors, and you have evidence that the fault is corrected by power down/reinitialization. You've isolated the problem to a single brand AND you've got the same problem in two units with probably very similar date codes. Finally, it's an off brand.
My informed (second hand) guess? Bad choice of monitors. You know what to do.
(If I owned two like this, i'd have them apart and have monitor leads soldered on to power supply traced internally and i'd find the set's processor and the reset circuit. i'd have a lead soldered to that and a switch to allow me to reset it when an upset occurred. if it worked, i'd try to associate the specific supply (there are usually multiple internal DC voltages) and if could do that, perhaps attempt a fix. Unless you are equipped for this extreme, it's replacement time, I fear.)
posted by FauxScot at 6:02 AM on October 13, 2013
O... you need to check the wall voltage for limits... If it's (unlikely) excessively high or low, you are at fault. 95-130 is about the legal range. tel3path has a good suggestion to change the environment, too. worth one more test, i guess. then, scrap heap.
posted by FauxScot at 6:04 AM on October 13, 2013
posted by FauxScot at 6:04 AM on October 13, 2013
Best answer: Yup, common fault in those 24" Kogan monitors/TVs (& their 27" bretheren). It's either the HDMI controller or the main micro; I dont know if anyone's bothered to find out since nobody fixes them (because Kogan can't/won't supply any service information). It's Kogan, they're cheap throwaway junk, the way you fix them is to buy something decent (i.e. almost anything except another Kogan).
FauxScot: "you need to check the wall voltage for limits... If it's (unlikely) excessively high or low, you are at fault. 95-130 is about the legal range."
Not in Australia where the OP is.
posted by Pinback at 6:46 AM on October 13, 2013 [1 favorite]
FauxScot: "you need to check the wall voltage for limits... If it's (unlikely) excessively high or low, you are at fault. 95-130 is about the legal range."
Not in Australia where the OP is.
posted by Pinback at 6:46 AM on October 13, 2013 [1 favorite]
Cheap equipment's design life is often not much longer than its warranty period.
posted by flabdablet at 7:14 AM on October 13, 2013
posted by flabdablet at 7:14 AM on October 13, 2013
Best answer: Thanks, pinback.
230 +10%, -6% is spec Australian voltage. Now that I know you are in Australia, it's probably all due to your monitors operating upside down from their country of design. Who knows what kind of stuff you will run into?
posted by FauxScot at 7:23 AM on October 13, 2013
230 +10%, -6% is spec Australian voltage. Now that I know you are in Australia, it's probably all due to your monitors operating upside down from their country of design. Who knows what kind of stuff you will run into?
posted by FauxScot at 7:23 AM on October 13, 2013
Since they're failing the same, you can try putting a fan or other ventilation on them to rule out heat-related issues (which are often the source of intermittent failure).
posted by fake at 8:01 AM on October 13, 2013
posted by fake at 8:01 AM on October 13, 2013
Response by poster: Well, crap. That pretty much confirms my worst suspicions. I will attempt to wring a refund out of Kogan (haha - that should be interesting) but essentially I'm just gonna write this off as a learning experience and buy new monitors. Special thanks to FauxScot for the upside-down crack - not particularly helpful but it cheered me up. :)
posted by ninazer0 at 2:08 PM on October 14, 2013
posted by ninazer0 at 2:08 PM on October 14, 2013
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posted by tel3path at 5:57 AM on October 13, 2013 [1 favorite]