Typically 6 months out of 3 years warranty my monitor has gone intermittent. Sometimes it just refuses to switch on and other times its ok, except just recently I can rarely get it to fire up at all.
Its a slim clamshell design with VERY well concealed catches or whatever fastening the back cover to the front bezel. I'm rarely defeated but this case is clamed up like a limpet and I'm loathe to go much further at prizing it apart if there's a chance anyone knows how to do it.
The nice (not!) NEC man said "tough, its out of warranty, and no we do't release the manual" but they do free evaluations (i.e. give a quote) if I take it to London, otherwise they'll collect it for £41. So I don't want to damage it as I may yet have to do that - which will hurt!!
So, anyone have any clues how to open a 20" NEC 20WGX2 flatscreen LCD monitor?
's probably got those legs on one panel that get squeezed in to recesses in the mating panel and you need a member of the magic Circle to get them apart .
That looks promising, thank you, I'll re-post on there. You're probably right about the clips, but the halves of this monitor fit really neatly together and I can't get any movement to yield a clue as to where they may be.
Only if I can be first to say "Have you tried WD40?" :)
Not familiar with the monitor in question, but try prising a corner apart gently and then running a credit card round the join to see if that frees up the catches?
A suitable 'corner' is normally found starting from inside around the metal work of the stand, that which ye should at lest find screws to release. Finishing this post I'm going to try an ESP ping of 'Arfa Daily' as he'd surely be able to give definitive on this.
I inherited a DELL LCD monitor, which worked, but gave off some rather funky smells ... I managed to get it apart without *too* much damage using a knife, and prising with the long edge along the sides ... it seemed to need a lot of the gap to be forced to get it to lift ... I suspect that they use a proper jig in the workshop, which applies pressure on all 4 sides simultaneously ... you may get better results with a willing assistant (just make sure the knives aren't pointy :-) )
Once I had the beast open I found a capacitor had started to burn out , and the smell was the PCB charring. There were 4 identical capacitors which seemed to be part of a power-smoothing circuit feeding the 4 lamps round the screen. I was able to read the spec from the 3 remaining ones, only to discover the only retail source in the UK (online that is) was Farnell, who had a minimum delivery charge of about =A315 ...
PSU secondary caps are swollen/leaking. Does not take much for the end result to be a sudden refusal to power on that gets worse with time.
Getting it apart is more than getting the case apart. Case assembly uses both clips AND screws. The clips require a "thin stainless salad knife". You need the width to avoid tearing up the plastic and work around the perimeter, a combination of snap clips that are extremely effective. The screws must be undone or you are on a hiding to nothing.
Clips are typically 1mm pitch AND latch via a paddle. The paddle is fiddly to release, but the wires are somewhat thin and vulnerable. First is usually the bezel buttons, then the panel with DVI/VGA board & PSU board.
The TFT panel is screwed to a steel frame, sharp edges abound, with the DVI/VGA board & PSU board side-by-side on the rear - all covered in aluminium. The aluminium must be carefully removed, then the links to the panel unplugged, before the video board & PSU can be removed. All the time beware scratching the TFT panel. Once you have the offending PSU in front of you the caps can be inspected for bulging tops or any discharge around the base, you will need to examine carefully because it is quite minor compared to the dreadful state a typical PC PSU can degenerate into before the PC gives up. I've had Etasis with lava flows still running fine albeit voltages miles out of specification.
The PSU board can be bought as a unit - usually about =A320-45, although the parts required cost little.
One thing to consider is the cost of a replacement, unless the panel is PVA/IPS then replacement isn't much - then again risking a repair isn't risking much either. Some monitors are good, so are well worth repairing. Sadly I stuffed by 1706FPV during the repair - a good PVA panel with very good backlight, the 1707FPV that replaced it whilst also PVA has a simply crap backlight in comparison. The 1706FPV was only just beaten by the much more expensive Eizo which had a marginally improved backlight and mainly better PSU.
What you really need is a video - and for that try YouTube. Quite a few videos as I recall showing repair of Dell monitors - basically the PSU capacitor issue is well known across many brands. People hated the external bricks "because they failed", well I'd rather have one of those because at least replacement is somewhat simpler :-)
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