A time when everything dies simultaneously.

The $1400 beast finally blanked out after 7 years. The power light came on, but it would no longer detect a signal. Another monitor died earlier in the year, failing to come on at all. It was attributed to a mane processor burnout. Components can now be optimized precisely enough to hit a minimum required lifespan.

Thus began a period of despair over a future of just laptops or losing $400.





The most maligned failure point by Dave, the power supply was pristine.


It had but 1 broken solder joint, which wasn't the problem. The next step was to search for surface mount fuses.


Next, we have the input board, which had no fuses. It must have been the problem but looked pristene.



A giant, expensive inverter board for pumping gigawatts into the enormous backlight. It had a fuse which still worked.


Finally, there was a very expensive, fragile looking demuxing board. It couldn't have been the problem, but


it did indeed have a burned out fuse, straight out of Dave's video. The fuse was intermittently burned out, also what Dave found. It was extremely lucky to be found not working.


Lacking enough money for a new fuse, it got a jumper resistor.


The monitor blazed to life again & another financial disaster was averted, until the next component fails. Strange to be using something now, which was surely gone a day earlier. Suspect the chips take more power as they age, tin whiskers short out other parts, until the fuse burns out & then the chips burn out. At least the machine stays alive for a little longer.

Without the enclosure, the backlight was finally revealed to get extremely hot. It probably only lasted this long because it's directly in front of a fan. The demuxing chip & backlight live at 135F, an insanely high temperature for a consumer product. Lacking enough money for a replacement, it could probably use some airflow.

While disappointing that a modern monitor can only last 7 years while a TV from 1950 can last 60 years, the only way anyone can afford them is if they do a lot more with a lot less. They have to move a huge amount of data compared to a 60 year old TV & they have to use a lot less material to feed the huge increase in people.

The actual segment where Dave repaired his monitor:

http://youtu.be/orFkIXO0uUI?t=11m