Monitor pulses, picture, black, picture, black. Can't turn off unless plug pulled.

tehlaserwolf

Prominent
Sep 6, 2017
4
0
510
The monitor in question, acer s230hl.

Here's the problem. About a year ago, I turned my computer off to move into an new apartment. When I set everything up, my other monitors turned on fine, but this one flashed on for a second then black screen. It went back and forth like this for about five minutes, then the acer logo came on and it went back to working normally. It appeared to do some sort of hard reset on itself.

When I moved into another place about a year later, it did the same thing, only this time, it took almost half an hour to start working again. This happened three or four more times over the next couple of years each time with an increased time of full picture, black screen, full picture, black screen, and so on.

Two days ago, my water cooling pump clogged and I had to flush it. The computer was off for about five hours. After I put everything back together and powered it up, same issue. I waited five hours this time, still pulsing. This time however, it would just flash the screen, no full picture. Flash, black, flash, black, etc. I figured it was the same problem so I left it and ran some errands. Five hours later, same thing. I left it over night, same thing. When I mess with the buttons (sometimes jamming the power or input button will get it to work) the light goes stable, and I get picture for a millisecond then back to blinking.

I spent 8 hours scouting the internet yesterday trying to find a cause to this weird problem and everything I was reading said power problem, so I dismantled it and got really confused. There's only one board here, and a few spread out caps. Not the traditional power board and display board, and it's much much smaller than the demos I was seeing online. Still, I looked at the caps and they weren't bulging. I reset the ribbon cable, made sure all connections were tight and correct, and still can't get it to work.

It's not an led problem, I see the picture fine for that millisecond before it goes back to pulsing. It's can't be cables because I've tried it in two different fix cards with hdmi, vga, dvi, serial, adaptors.

I'm at a loss. This is just another in a series of things in my life that are just broken down and I'm at my wits end. If I knew what was causing the problem I could easily fix it, but I can't even begin to find the problem. Please help!

Link below for pictures of the board and capacitors.

Here
 

blockhead78

Distinguished
so, once the monitor has been without power for a while... the problem happens right?

if so, then it unfortunately sounds like the monitor has a power management/firmware fault

in other words, it's goosed

only thing i can think of is to do a factory reset from the OSD menu settings (not entirely sure how)
 

tehlaserwolf

Prominent
Sep 6, 2017
4
0
510
Well, for some reason, I can't reply to you mr blockhead, so hopefully you see this. I can't get a menu to show op because it keeps pulsing. You can't even turn it off with the power button. So I'm not sure how to do a factory reset without the ability to show a menu.

It almost acts as if it's trying to find the right input.

And if it is a power management fault, that's not fixable?
 

blockhead78

Distinguished
as far as being fixable, it sounds like either component failure, or firmware bugging out... or possibly both. Hard to say either way without having the tools to be able to test it.

fixing it could quite possibly end up costing more than the monitor is worth

how long ago did you buy it? Acer monitors have a 3 year warranty
 

tehlaserwolf

Prominent
Sep 6, 2017
4
0
510
Longer than 3 years. :(

The monitor is only 100 bucks to replace. But I can't afford even that. If it's a simple solder job I could fix it for free :/

I don't have any testing equipment at home. Are there any well known places that can test stuff for me?
 

blockhead78

Distinguished
I'm afraid monitor repair is not something I've ever dealt with specifically, so i'm not familiar with places that would do it. Plus I'm in the UK

Another thought is replacing the main board. After a quick look online, they go for fairly cheap

although it's quite possible the board is the issue, it might be something like a faulty internal display connection making the main board bug out
 

tehlaserwolf

Prominent
Sep 6, 2017
4
0
510
That's the problem! Despite ruling out the usual suspects, it could still be a number of things :/

I was overjoyed when I figured out how to repair my pump, a fairly inexpensive item to replace, and now I have to deal with something 4 times the price! Ugh!

Thanks for your input, I'll check out some replacement boards