[COLUG] LCD Monitor Repair

[Rob Stampfli]

Mark,
A friend and I successfully recently repaired a 19 inch Gateway monitor,
model number FPD1830, with a similar problem.  First, the backlight
started flickering when first turned on, and then it just died completely.
A search on Google determined that this was a common problem for this
monitor, requiring the replacement of 4 electrolytic capacitors to repair.
We followed the quite excellent instructions on:

http://25yearsofprogramming.com/blog/20070403.htm

and reincarnated this beast at the cost of about $6.  3.5 years seems
to be about the average time-to-failure of this unit.

I have no idea if your Benq FP757 is related to the Gateway, or if it
uses a similar inverter board, but if you like the monitor, it might
be worth opening it up and checking.  

The caps on mine did not look visually bad.  They were not bulged or
discolored.  They were good quality Sanyo 105C caps.  But, as the
article suggests, they were a bear to remove.  In the end, we resorted
to physically yanking the caps off the inverter board and then removing
the leads one-by-one.  The replacements were cheap 85C caps from Radio
Shack, but they were readily available and the monitor is lightly used.
I'd estimate we spent 3-4 hours on the project, and if it fails again,
I could do it in 1.5.

Good luck.  If you open the monitor up yourself, let us know what you
find.

Rob