Dell P1110 dead?

jimuxjimux
edited January 2006 in Hardware
The chem department at my university was discarding some monitors and I picked up a Dell P1110 (september 2000). It works, except it's very dark (in contrast to the brightness other people have had) and the OSD never comes up. Also, when I try to get into self-test mode the LED blinks amber, which the manual says means that it's "broken", which isn't a very helpful description.

I'm not much of electronics guy, so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas. Thanks.

Comments

  • NightwolfNightwolf Afghanistan Member
    edited January 2006
    I'm not sure what you can do if you can't change it manually with the monitor or in your settings on yoru desktop. You might want to take it in to get a diagnostic.
  • jimuxjimux
    edited January 2006
    It seems that the brightness of the monitor can be controlled based on the reistance on R459. There is nothing there now, could it be conceiveable to use a heavy resistor to brighten the screen in contrast to using a light one like those used to cure the 'too bright' problem? I'm thinking not, as the OSD is also affected for some reason (while it doesn't display, I can still use OSD controls using the manual to imagine the display), but you guys I'd think would know better.
  • jimuxjimux
    edited January 2006
    Taking a closer look, there appears to be a resistor on R459, but it's on the other side of the board. Would it make sense to try to remove it? Or am I asking for trouble? It seems to me that if a resistor added to R459 darkens the image, the logical way to brighten it up is the remove it.

    I would go ahead and remove it anyway just to see, but I'm not an eletrician and I don't know for sure what parts are dangerous back there. Can someone with a P1110 take a look at theirs and tell me if there any parts in the back that I should beware of? Thanks.
  • P991-DELL-SONYP991-DELL-SONY California
    edited January 2006
    You might want to try using the WinDAS Sony DAS software. I once got my own monitor into a sorry state in which the light would blink but it would show no picture, I reset it with the software and it was fine. I don't know what could be wrong with yours, but if a monitor gets too bright, it'll shut itself down like mine did. Are the dark colors very blue? That could indicate it reverted to default settings. The fact that the OSD is locked may indicate someone tried using the software? Or maybe the EEPROM's bits flipped? It sounds like the software would give you a good shot at setting things straight.
    Oh, and you don't have to remove that resistor, just put a wire from one end to the other and it will have the same effect (just checking, but I figure you would have tried shorting it already). Ofcourse, this is likely to ruin something going from 6.8M OHM to 0, something would probably burn, or... maybe not, I think the G2 is charged like a cap (with the other plate being.. some side of the CRT?), so it wouldn't burn, it'd probably arc inside the tube. I don't know. If you insist on changing that resistor, try putting a a larger resistor in parallel.
    All in all, I'd recomend you try the winDAS software mentioned in the Dell P1110 monitor too bright thread, though, I suppose that is too much trouble for a gamble.

    Good luck whatever you decide!

    http://www.geocities.com/gregua/windas/


    jimux wrote:
    Taking a closer look, there appears to be a resistor on R459, but it's on the other side of the board. Would it make sense to try to remove it? Or am I asking for trouble? It seems to me that if a resistor added to R459 darkens the image, the logical way to brighten it up is the remove it.

    I would go ahead and remove it anyway just to see, but I'm not an eletrician and I don't know for sure what parts are dangerous back there. Can someone with a P1110 take a look at theirs and tell me if there any parts in the back that I should beware of? Thanks.
  • jimuxjimux
    edited January 2006
    A couple hours ago I got my hands another P1110 that the chem dept was throwing out that had the brightness problem. I took the R459 resistor out of the first monitor and soldered it on top of the one in the new monitor and now it works just fine. A bit easier than trying to find Sony's DAS software (not to mention the hardware needed to use it).

    Thanks.
  • P991-DELL-SONYP991-DELL-SONY California
    edited January 2006
    jimux wrote:
    A couple hours ago I got my hands another P1110 that the chem dept was throwing out that had the brightness problem. I took the R459 resistor out of the first monitor and soldered it on top of the one in the new monitor and now it works just fine. A bit easier than trying to find Sony's DAS software (not to mention the hardware needed to use it).

    Thanks.

    Glad to hear that worked. There are always about ~3 people viewing the P1110 thread, I suspect many of them never make it to the last 4 pages. Out of curiosity, did you read the last 4? I posted a howto with screenshots covering downloading, installing and patching the software and building the cable from 1 IC and wires. I figured, for most people who don't have one of those resistors, ordering one with shipping/mininum orders is going to cost as least as much as getting the IC and some wires for doing the windas cable (actually a comon ttl<>rs232(serial) cable exacty the same used for all cellphone/PDA/10$ Pokect organizers etc. data cables , you could simply cut one of those and tape the wires to the four labeled pins on the monitor.) Good thing you had a soldering iron! I assume you probably are going to junk the too bright one, having taken it's resistor out. Incase you didn't notice it, I thought I should mention it for future readers of this thread.

    http://www.geocities.com/gregua/windas/

    Somtimes the monitor will not go back on again, and so Windas can reset the error and allow the monitor to power up again, luckily, you didn't need that, does your OSD work now?
  • P991-DELL-SONYP991-DELL-SONY California
    edited January 2006
    Ha... I am an idiot, you are talking about the overbright monitor being the one you fixed. I suggested the wrong in my first post, that resistor must controll the flow of negative charge onto the G2, which is ~400v positive with respect to the cathode. As increasing the resistance makes your picture brighter. I guess you wanted to remove it to have ultimate resistance? Sorry Sorry, I was totally wrong, and was so rude as to have sugested shorting it. Actually, that makes me curious what happened to the one you removed it from,being dim in the first place, is it much brighter now?
    Again, sorry, thanks for being polite about it.
  • jimuxjimux
    edited January 2006
    Heh, it's no problem.

    I read most of the posts in the brightness thread, but I skimmed over the majority of it as I'm a newbie at electronics.

    The monitor that was too dim won't work without the resistor. I can it hear it turn on and that high-pitched noise, but no image shows up and the monitor just turns off dead after a couple minutes. I haven't tried shorting though, I wasn't sure if that would be safe. Last thing I need is to blow up a monitor in my apartment.
  • TurbobajaTurbobaja
    edited January 2006
    jimux wrote:
    Heh, it's no problem.

    I read most of the posts in the brightness thread, but I skimmed over the majority of it as I'm a newbie at electronics.

    The monitor that was too dim won't work without the resistor. I can it hear it turn on and that high-pitched noise, but no image shows up and the monitor just turns off dead after a couple minutes. I haven't tried shorting though, I wasn't sure if that would be safe. Last thing I need is to blow up a monitor in my apartment.


    If you still read this, do you still have the dead p1110? I could use the board the a/c plugs into. Email me at turbobaja@gmail.com. Thanks
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