100% Working repair for Gateway XHD3000 30" LCD monitor

If the scaler chip was reballed (solder pads replaced) by a professional using softer solder than originally used then in theory it should not have to be baked again. Baking doesn't replace the solder, it simply melts it to get rid of the microfractures. If the scaler isn't cooled properly baking becomes an ongoing thing.

In practice nobody trusts the scaler chip to not overheat regardless of what solder is used, hence the heatsink/fan mods. If you keep the scaler cool enough (mine stays below body temperature) then it doesn't matter if you reballed it or just baked, it will work and keep working until something else breaks - in the 305T's case bad capacitors in the power supply/inverter board will eventually fail. Fortunately if you know your way around a soldering iron they are cheap and easy to replace.

I baked my XHD3000 scaler board over 2 years ago and it still works fine. Mind you, I went a bit extreme in my quest to keep it cool by keeping the back case off, mounting a heatsink directly to the scaler chip, and using a 60mm case fan (powered by the 5V line of a USB hub to keep it quiet) blowing sideways to keep it cool.

If the previous owner did the mod right, he cut the RF shield and mounted the heatsink directly onto the scaler chip. If he didn't then unless he went crazy like me on the other cooling factors it has a chance of overheating again if it is really pushed hard eg. spending a long time working continuously in non-native resolution.

Just for the record I have never had to bake any of my scaler boards more than once, but again I take major precautions against overheat.
 
Thanks for the answer.

One stupid question tho - how to you test the temperature of the chip before/after the mod ?
 
I've been using the old-fashioned method ie. touch the heatsink and see if you develop third-degree burns. People with infra-red thermometers have been checking out the before and after temps but I find that unnecessary (mostly because I'm cheap). I can get away with it because the heatsinks on mine are mounted directly on the scaler chip, some mods place the heatsink on top of the RF shield over the scaler board. I dislike that because the TIM between the scaler board and the RF shield isn't all that great (and in the XHD3000 the TIM is nearly an inch thick, easily the thickest TIM I've ever seen in my 32-year computer career). If the RF shield isn't modded then it can be a real problem how to check the temperature of the scaler chip itself other than the "use it until it explodes" method.
 
Ok so I got the BigAssMother :)) Damn this is impressive and somewhat overwhelming coming from a 17" laptop.
Seems that the mod was done nicely, there is a pretty wide heatsink on most of the board + a fan on top. All nice and tidy. The metal cage is not visible ( maybe he removed it completely ). The previous owner told me he has done it carefully with thermal pads ( not paste ) and have been running perfectly for more than a year since. Also he had the fan hooked up to the pc by a molex plug but I modded that to work on USB and stuck it into my Belkin powered hub. I didn't like the idea of the monitor being hooked up to my PC power source. The fan spins slower now ( lower voltage of course ) and pretty quiet. By pushing the air down on the heatsink, it also spreads it everywhere in that area and some of it comes back through the air lines right next to it and if I hold my hand there the air is very cool so I think that takes care of that little piggy. I also asked if he worked anything on the power supply unit as I knew the caps can usually go bad on this model but he said he never had any issues. Maybe they are of a good brand compared to others, who knows ... at least I know where to go if something goes up. What are the usual symptoms of power caps going bad ?

One thing tho, and I am curios if it's normal: the monitor has a slight buzz when it's on. If you stay close to it and power it off and on it's pretty obvious, but not something that feels necessary wrong. I think the internal power supply does that. Is this normal?

Also, considering this model doesn't have ANY customization options other than the brightness - is there any way you can sort of calibrate it? Not that I don't find the colors good, they are pretty phenomenal, but just curios. I also tried the color profile from tft central but it seemed to warm up the colors quite dramatically so I kept the windows default sRGB setting instead.

So far so good - it's quite a piece of machinery this monster. Still trying to get used to it... Any other advice for a recent owner ? :) Thanks for everything nevertheless.
 
Unfortunately that buzzing sound you are hearing is quite possibly the caps going - that's what I heard on mine when they blew. My power supply stopped buzzing when I replaced the bad caps.

The lack of controls is annoying, you have to rely on the video card's controls to calibrate. A major problem for me is that Eyefinity locks out several of the controls in SLS mode which limits what I can do to adjust it.
 
So what are the symptoms of the caps going out entirely ?? How not to mistake the video chip getting screwed from the caps failing ?
 
If it's the caps in the power supply then typically it's no power to the monitor (no power button light). If it's the caps in the inverter then it shows up as no backlight (you can just see the image in the LCD).

The scaler board problem manifests itself with similar symptoms, the best way to figure it out is to use the Mark II eyeball method ie. pull out the power board and looking for blown caps. Make sure you check the bottom of the caps as well as the top - last time I changed caps on my power board I had 2 blown out at the bottom rather than the top.
 
Thanks for the answers.

Right now I am enjoying life in 30" - still getting used to the animal but this is very very nice. Although there are some webpages that need a bit of zooming - it's all a matter of getting used to.

Gaming on 30" on the other hand is simply ORGASMIC :D
 
Thanks for the answers.

Right now I am enjoying life in 30" - still getting used to the animal but this is very very nice. Although there are some webpages that need a bit of zooming - it's all a matter of getting used to.

Gaming on 30" on the other hand is simply ORGASMIC :D

Try gaming on 3 30" monitors - it's just like being there.
 
Thanks for the answers.

Right now I am enjoying life in 30" - still getting used to the animal but this is very very nice. Although there are some webpages that need a bit of zooming - it's all a matter of getting used to.

Gaming on 30" on the other hand is simply ORGASMIC :D

Try gaming on 3 30" monitors - it's just like being there.

Like wise try gaming on 5 in portrait.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY12UBzmfOA, wish I made more video when I had the other 2.
 
Ohh - one thing tho - this baby doesn't have it's original stand-foot. It's a crappy handmade thing which won't allow me to lift it - so I put 2 big book under it. Also looks like sh!t.

Do you guys have ANY idea where I could find one original foot? Maybe someone with a bricked screen that doesn't need it, or could I fit maybe a foot from another model ? eBay isn't much of a help ...

Thanks
 
Hey guys, I thought I saw that this thread could help dying Samsung 305t's. I found one on craigslist that has this problem which looks like green transparency. Is this fixable? Please note that I don't have any real reflow equipment, so it would probably be a baking method.
 
Ohh - one thing tho - this baby doesn't have it's original stand-foot. It's a crappy handmade thing which won't allow me to lift it - so I put 2 big book under it. Also looks like sh!t.

Do you guys have ANY idea where I could find one original foot? Maybe someone with a bricked screen that doesn't need it, or could I fit maybe a foot from another model ? eBay isn't much of a help ...

Thanks

30" monitor stands are pretty rare, the darn things are so heavy you have to build a fairly strong one to hold it. Try Ergotron, they have a NEO series that can hold a 30":

http://www.ergotron.com/ProductsDetails/tabid/65/PRDID/242/language/en-US/Default.aspx
 
Hey guys, I thought I saw that this thread could help dying Samsung 305t's. I found one on craigslist that has this problem which looks like green transparency. Is this fixable? Please note that I don't have any real reflow equipment, so it would probably be a baking method.

It might be fixable, that is a symptom of the scaler board overheating. Bake the scaler (do *NOT* put in the entire monitor!!!) for 8 minutes at 385°F (make sure the scaler chip is *UP*), don't put the board flat on the pan make 4 balls of aluminium foil (1 per corner). Let it cool for at least an hour, then remount. I highly advise you rig a heatsink/fan for the scaler chip otherwise you'll be baking it every few months. Plenty of posts here on various methods of cooling, mine is one of the more excessive ones:


Untitled by rtangwai, on Flickr

Be warned, the 305T is also known to have bad caps on the power supply and inverter board. That means you might fix the green flickering only to have the backlight crap out or the entire monitor die later. If you know your way around a soldering iron the caps are pretty easy to replace, you can buy kits with all the correct capacitors using known good brands for around $15 on eBay.

Also note that it's starting to get tough to find the scaler board so if you baking fails to fix it and it isn't a cap problem you might get stuck. The only reason I stick my neck out on these monitors is that I already have 3 of them so if the scalers start to fail in ways I cannot fix I will have at least 1 30" monitor for quite some time. Eventually I'll have to bite the bullet but given how cheap Korean 27" 1440p monitors are it is hardly the end of the world. Please note that if you cool the scaler properly the bake method can last a long time - I baked one of my scalers over 2 years ago and it is still works like a charm because I put a big heatsink on it and an even bigger fan. That chip used to break the boiling point of water, on my XHD3000 it doesn't even reach body temperature anymore.

How much does he want for the monitor? Given it's a 305T and therefore the caps will fail (unless they were already replaced) apart from the scaler board problem I wouldn't go over $100. Replacement scalers on eBay are $200 apiece, possibly $15 to $25 (if the power capacitor is bad) for a kit, you are getting perilously close to a Korean 27" 1440p if the scaler goes completely south on you and at least the 27" have warranties.

BTW, you used to have 5 30" monitors but you got rid of 2 - why the sudden urge to get more again?
 
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It might be fixable, that is a symptom of the scaler board overheating. Bake the scaler (do *NOT* put in the entire monitor!!!) for 8 minutes at 385°F (make sure the scaler chip is *UP*), don't put the board flat on the pan make 4 balls of aluminium foil (1 per corner). Let it cool for at least an hour, then remount. I highly advise you rig a heatsink/fan for the scaler chip otherwise you'll be baking it every few months. Plenty of posts here on various methods of cooling, mine is one of the more excessive ones:

8170373534


...stuff...

How much does he want for the monitor? Given it's a 305T and therefore the caps will fail (unless they were already replaced) apart from the scaler board problem I wouldn't go over $100. Replacement scalers on eBay are $200 apiece, possibly $15 to $25 (if the power capacitor is bad) for a kit, you are getting perilously close to a Korean 27" 1440p if the scaler goes completely south on you and at least the 27" have warranties.

BTW, you used to have 5 30" monitors but you got rid of 2 - why the sudden urge to get more again?

I haven't gone to test the monitor yet, but I suggested $150. But now that I see this could cost me a little more money then I'd like, I'll see if I can drop the price on him.

Are you powering that fan with usb?

Couple of things happened. I wanted to upgrade to a 7970 (from a 5870 Eyefinity 6 edition). No 7970 is able to output 5 (or 6) Dual-Link connections. So I sold and traded my side 30"rs. Sold one and bought my Lightning Used (which I probably wont do again because I had to immediately RMA it and when the next one came I had to RMA that one). The other one I traded to a friend for 3 2209WA's and used the remained of my money to buy 2 more and do 5x1P with 22"rs. I found out that 22"rs are too small for my liking.

What has changed though is that, DisplayPort 1.2 MST Hubs are coming out "soon... -ish" and I've also bought a second 7970. These HUBs will allow me to run two 30" monitors off of one displayport and they act as separate monitors so I can use eyefinity.

5x1P is my favorite setup for gaming and I cant really go back to smaller monitors as I've spoiled myself. 5x1 P 30" is massive, though movies still suck for playing on them. So I think I'll setup my TV in the other room with a long hdmi cable.

At the very least, it would be nice to have another 30" above my current setup for movie, visualizers, watching downloads, consoles, etc.
 
I haven't gone to test the monitor yet, but I suggested $150. But now that I see this could cost me a little more money then I'd like, I'll see if I can drop the price on him.

Are you powering that fan with usb?

Couple of things happened. I wanted to upgrade to a 7970 (from a 5870 Eyefinity 6 edition). No 7970 is able to output 5 (or 6) Dual-Link connections. So I sold and traded my side 30"rs. Sold one and bought my Lightning Used (which I probably wont do again because I had to immediately RMA it and when the next one came I had to RMA that one). The other one I traded to a friend for 3 2209WA's and used the remained of my money to buy 2 more and do 5x1P with 22"rs. I found out that 22"rs are too small for my liking.

What has changed though is that, DisplayPort 1.2 MST Hubs are coming out "soon... -ish" and I've also bought a second 7970. These HUBs will allow me to run two 30" monitors off of one displayport and they act as separate monitors so I can use eyefinity.

5x1P is my favorite setup for gaming and I cant really go back to smaller monitors as I've spoiled myself. 5x1 P 30" is massive, though movies still suck for playing on them. So I think I'll setup my TV in the other room with a long hdmi cable.

At the very least, it would be nice to have another 30" above my current setup for movie, visualizers, watching downloads, consoles, etc.

I'm powering the fan with USB - on the XHD3000 the USB hub is powered, unfortunately on the 305T it is unpowered so I plug in the USB to a powered hub. Since USB is 5V and these are 12V fans they are very quiet.

There *IS* a 7970 that can drive 5 30" monitors - the ASUS EAH7970DCUII. You'll need 4 dual-link active display adapters, but it would work. I have the EAH6950DCUII which is why I know.

I'm not holding my breath on the MST hub - they have been promised forever. Given how flakey DisplayPort/dual-link DVI adapters are I suspect the MST hub manufacturers haven't been able to make something both reliable and affordable, hence the excessive wait. I'm betting that video card manufacturers will re-introduce 6 DisplayPort video cards ala 5870 Eyefinity 6 because they are also fed up waiting for MST hubs - Sapphire in particular comes to mind as they made the FLEX series indicating they are aware of customers that want more flexibility in monitor connections. I'm also curious if AMD will allow more than 6 displays connected to a single GPU in the 8xxx chips considering how big a design win 4+ was over nVidia.

I understand your dislike for 22" 5x1 portrait - I tried it with 24" 1920x1200 for less than a month before I scrapped it in favour of 3x30". Movies looked like crap with all the bezels in the way, ended up building a HTPC to drive a 46" TV. I too am considering going 5x30" but I'm concerned about trying to drive that many pixels in a beefy game, plus I dislike bezels. 2 are bad enough, 4 would be murder.

Adding a 30" above a row of 30" even in landscape could be problematic. You would have to either buy a triple-height stand (whose mounts may not be strong enough to support a 30") or build a custom stand. I'm doing the latter as soon as I can afford 4x22" 1920x1080 monitors as the only other solution I could find is buying 4 Ergotron LX stacking arms and they cost more than the monitors. It could also be painful for your neck to see the top of the upper monitor.
 
I'm powering the fan with USB - on the XHD3000 the USB hub is powered, unfortunately on the 305T it is unpowered so I plug in the USB to a powered hub. Since USB is 5V and these are 12V fans they are very quiet.

There *IS* a 7970 that can drive 5 30" monitors - the ASUS EAH7970DCUII. You'll need 4 dual-link active display adapters, but it would work. I have the EAH6950DCUII which is why I know.

I'm not holding my breath on the MST hub - they have been promised forever. Given how flakey DisplayPort/dual-link DVI adapters are I suspect the MST hub manufacturers haven't been able to make something both reliable and affordable, hence the excessive wait. I'm betting that video card manufacturers will re-introduce 6 DisplayPort video cards ala 5870 Eyefinity 6 because they are also fed up waiting for MST hubs - Sapphire in particular comes to mind as they made the FLEX series indicating they are aware of customers that want more flexibility in monitor connections. I'm also curious if AMD will allow more than 6 displays connected to a single GPU in the 8xxx chips considering how big a design win 4+ was over nVidia.

I understand your dislike for 22" 5x1 portrait - I tried it with 24" 1920x1200 for less than a month before I scrapped it in favour of 3x30". Movies looked like crap with all the bezels in the way, ended up building a HTPC to drive a 46" TV. I too am considering going 5x30" but I'm concerned about trying to drive that many pixels in a beefy game, plus I dislike bezels. 2 are bad enough, 4 would be murder.

Adding a 30" above a row of 30" even in landscape could be problematic. You would have to either buy a triple-height stand (whose mounts may not be strong enough to support a 30") or build a custom stand. I'm doing the latter as soon as I can afford 4x22" 1920x1080 monitors as the only other solution I could find is buying 4 Ergotron LX stacking arms and they cost more than the monitors. It could also be painful for your neck to see the top of the upper monitor.

I have used this the last time I did it. Though if you change around your setup a lit, I advise against these. They can unscrew over time and tightening is annoying. If the stay loose and wiggle a lot (or are transported a lot rather) the screw can break and it uses a non-standard screw, so the screws I replaced them with are very tight, so the cycle continues.

The 7970 DirectCUII CANNOT do 5x1P 30". It disables one of the displayports to make the Single Link into a Dual Link. This is why I went with Lightnings as even though I cant use Dual-Link at all from the DVI ports, It's a dual-slot card. Plus the 7970 DirectCUII's DVI has a problem with the green pixels blinking in and out of existence all over the screen.

I've also been waiting since the 7970 was released to finally have a card with 6 display ports. I don't see them anywhere except for a prototype that never was released. Sapphire FLEX 7970 with 6xMiniDP and 6GB Here's a list of cards that can do 5 or more monitors: http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=24334
 
I have used this the last time I did it. Though if you change around your setup a lit, I advise against these. They can unscrew over time and tightening is annoying. If the stay loose and wiggle a lot (or are transported a lot rather) the screw can break and it uses a non-standard screw, so the screws I replaced them with are very tight, so the cycle continues.

The 7970 DirectCUII CANNOT do 5x1P 30". It disables one of the displayports to make the Single Link into a Dual Link. This is why I went with Lightnings as even though I cant use Dual-Link at all from the DVI ports, It's a dual-slot card. Plus the 7970 DirectCUII's DVI has a problem with the green pixels blinking in and out of existence all over the screen.

I've also been waiting since the 7970 was released to finally have a card with 6 display ports. I don't see them anywhere except for a prototype that never was released. Sapphire FLEX 7970 with 6xMiniDP and 6GB Here's a list of cards that can do 5 or more monitors: http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=24334

You're right, I forgot about that switch that disables the last DisplayPort. I have a HD6990 in CrossFire with my EAH6950DCUII so I know I can do 5x1P 30" if I ever choose to go that route. What's annoying is that there were several HD 7970 Eyefinity 6 announced eg. Visiontek but never released. I bet that everyone stopped because they thought MST 1.2 hubs were about to be released.

I'm still not holding my breath regarding the MST hubs, although the latest press releases and demos at CES 2013 are encouraging. I'm sure AMD has been prodding the manufacturers for some time as this whole debacle has made AMD look bad. Fortunately for me I'm actually not likely to need this kind of bandwidth until 4K becomes affordable.
 
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Well mine has the green flickering now and I don't see where you can order the BN81-02450A any longer. Can someone direct me to a reputable shop or even an individual that can repair and modify my monitor?
 
Try this guy, at least one [H] member has used him with good results:

http://www.theneighborhoodnerd.net/samsung-305t-xhd3000-video-repair/

It's a bit pricey (though cheaper than buying a new 30" monitor), so you might want to try fixing it yourself. It's a lot easier than it sounds and if you have a Samsung 305T/305T+ you can take a quick peek inside to see if you have bad caps that have to be replaced as well. How are you with a screwdriver and soldering iron?
 
I WOULD NOT suggest this to anyone as their first soldering project!
You spent good money on a great monitor with a severe design flaw.
Have it repaired by somebody who knows what they are doing,
UNLESS you know what you are doing. I have repaired and sold 12 of
these monitors and have parts in stock. I'm stocking inverter boards,
LCD panels, power adapters, etc.

I can't promise I will have what you need in stock as I'm moving through stock fast.

I also can verify that Samsung NO LONGER is stocking this item NEW. You will have to get them repaired.
 
whatever you want. We are here to help. You can have however many you want or need. If you want all three, they are yours. Need any small fans? I might have one or two of those as well.

I'll have to find a small box if you want just 2 or 3 and I'll have to calculate postage which might take me some time. That is, unless you want me to ship it out in a simple small flat rate box. It's up to you really.

And finally, yes i can do paypal. I will pm you my paypal email shortly

That's awful nice. I am stuck with stuff and havent had time to work on my XHD 3000 and do this stuff. When I get time next. :)

Hello every one,

Had the green haze and colors going off.
Did the oven trick at 250 C for 10 minutes and the problems are gone.
I put a heat sink ont the GPU (used the rfshield as base) and then a fan on the heatsink.
Now it is working again fine. The GPU is now a nice 42 Celsius.
It still has the now and then once flicker, put that is rare(once an hour).
I hope it will last.

Thanks for the info, it did help pretty well.

Nice.

Today I found out just how important a heatsink+fan is for these monitors. I bought a replacement LVM board more than a year ago and attached a HSF to the Altera chip as a preventive measure. No problems the whole time, until...

yesterday when my monitor started artifacting again... opened it up and found the heatsink fell off completely :eek: I had just moved a month ago so that's probably when it happened, that's how long these things last without good cooling.

I just finished baking the card and reassembling everything, so far so good... hope this thing lasts me another year, or however long it takes for a mass market 4k monitor to hit.

How had you attached your Heatsink? What is HSF?

tldr: Sell me a LTM300M1C8LV3.2!

Hi guys, big time noob here. Just got done overcooking my LTM300M1C8LV3.2 and now I'm hoping one of you guys that is able to get the board will also be willing to sell me one.

In case anyone is curious: this was my second time baking the board, the first time it worked for about a month and was still kind of working (starting to flash often) when I got greedy and put it in the oven again. Whereas the first time I used my grandma's awesome Viking oven, some antique french nonsense to sit it on, and those fun "orca" oven mitts, this time I was in my dorm using electric crap that still is smelling up the place, a disposable cookie sheet, paper towels as mitts, and the room has nearly zero ventilation. What happened is that the connector actually fell off and one of the capacitors(?) melted. I suspect that this happened because it did not heat evenly and because it was not perfectly flat. Also, the 4 orange links to the Samsung panel are now deformed from the heat. The stuff on the interior of the board looks fine, giving further evidence that the electric oven "pulses" heat well above the 350 degrees I had it set to. It was in for about 3 minutes before I saw the connector fall off.

So please sell me a new one! I love everything about this monitor and I really do *need* the 1600p resolution for my architectural design software. Beyond that, it matches my desk so damn well!

P.S.
Isn't it crazy how this is still arguably the best monitor available? I bought mine in 2007! (btw, I think mine lasted as long as it did because I only used it at 2560x1600. Just before it died I had started to use it often with my Xbox 360 @1080p, damn you Halo 4.)

Yes - I believe I heated it up when I was using Apple TV on HDMI

You've seen the TIM on the Gateway - it's nearly an inch thick, bigger than any single piece of TIM I have ever seen in my 32-year computer career. Either replace it with a block of aluminum or (my preference) cut a hole in the RF shield and attach a heatsink directly to the scaler chip. You were right to attach the fans, the problem is that a TIM that thick cannot conduct enough heat fast enough to the RF shield (acting as a heatsink).

Whats a TIM? Whats a viable substitute for it?

If the scaler chip was reballed (solder pads replaced) by a professional using softer solder than originally used then in theory it should not have to be baked again. Baking doesn't replace the solder, it simply melts it to get rid of the microfractures. If the scaler isn't cooled properly baking becomes an ongoing thing.

In practice nobody trusts the scaler chip to not overheat regardless of what solder is used, hence the heatsink/fan mods. If you keep the scaler cool enough (mine stays below body temperature) then it doesn't matter if you reballed it or just baked, it will work and keep working until something else breaks - in the 305T's case bad capacitors in the power supply/inverter board will eventually fail. Fortunately if you know your way around a soldering iron they are cheap and easy to replace.

I baked my XHD3000 scaler board over 2 years ago and it still works fine. Mind you, I went a bit extreme in my quest to keep it cool by keeping the back case off, mounting a heatsink directly to the scaler chip, and using a 60mm case fan (powered by the 5V line of a USB hub to keep it quiet) blowing sideways to keep it cool.

If the previous owner did the mod right, he cut the RF shield and mounted the heatsink directly onto the scaler chip. If he didn't then unless he went crazy like me on the other cooling factors it has a chance of overheating again if it is really pushed hard eg. spending a long time working continuously in non-native resolution.

Just for the record I have never had to bake any of my scaler boards more than once, but again I take major precautions against overheat.

I am noting this down as well

I've been using the old-fashioned method ie. touch the heatsink and see if you develop third-degree burns. People with infra-red thermometers have been checking out the before and after temps but I find that unnecessary (mostly because I'm cheap). I can get away with it because the heatsinks on mine are mounted directly on the scaler chip, some mods place the heatsink on top of the RF shield over the scaler board. I dislike that because the TIM between the scaler board and the RF shield isn't all that great (and in the XHD3000 the TIM is nearly an inch thick, easily the thickest TIM I've ever seen in my 32-year computer career). If the RF shield isn't modded then it can be a real problem how to check the temperature of the scaler chip itself other than the "use it until it explodes" method.

Noted.
 
Whats a TIM? Whats a viable substitute for it?
Noted.

TIM = Thermal Interface Material

It's a rubbery pad that acts similar to thermal paste. It's no substitute for metal-to-metal contact, but it would work on something that doesn't generate a huge amount of heat eg. RAM chips.
 
Hey guys. So I have the dreaded monitor too (which is amazing when it works). My power brick died before my warranty was up and after a couple of months I was able to get them to replace that, but I have never had to work so hard to get help with a warrantied product!

Anyway, I got the green lines about two weeks ago and now have the monitor that gets power and changes colors on the touch buttons and functions basically correctly except that I have no image now.

I have a friend that has done soldering on a pinball machine to take it from not working to working, so this may be a piece of cake for him, but for a decent price, I'd happily pay someone to do it for me and then let my gpu's do the scaling (which I didn't do before, but also never ran at anything other than 2560x1600).

I've read some of the pages in here, but not all sixteen thoroughly yet. Any suggestions on repair so that I don't have to try diy? And for the $40 I saw at the beginning of the thread I'm happy to buy a new board too. Anyone do that recently and have suggestions? Sounds like there is some room for making errors as it has to be ordered from China? Shipping costs?

Thanks guys. I want to get to playing Bioshock Infinite and preordered it only to have my monitor die just before release.
 
Hey guys. So I have the dreaded monitor too (which is amazing when it works). My power brick died before my warranty was up and after a couple of months I was able to get them to replace that, but I have never had to work so hard to get help with a warrantied product!

Anyway, I got the green lines about two weeks ago and now have the monitor that gets power and changes colors on the touch buttons and functions basically correctly except that I have no image now.

I have a friend that has done soldering on a pinball machine to take it from not working to working, so this may be a piece of cake for him, but for a decent price, I'd happily pay someone to do it for me and then let my gpu's do the scaling (which I didn't do before, but also never ran at anything other than 2560x1600).

I've read some of the pages in here, but not all sixteen thoroughly yet. Any suggestions on repair so that I don't have to try diy? And for the $40 I saw at the beginning of the thread I'm happy to buy a new board too. Anyone do that recently and have suggestions? Sounds like there is some room for making errors as it has to be ordered from China? Shipping costs?

Thanks guys. I want to get to playing Bioshock Infinite and preordered it only to have my monitor die just before release.

First, I assume you have a XHD3000 because it has a power brick (the Samsung 305T/305T+ have internal power supplies).

Second, your monitor is no pinball machine - the solder pads *UNDERNEATH* the scaler chip have microfractures so unless your friend knows how to reball he can't help you with this. Ironically enough he *WOULD* have been useful in repairing the power brick as it is usually bad capacitors (which are easy to replace if you know how to use a soldering iron).

Third, that $40 board is now $200 and even that is for used ones on eBay - they stopped manufacturing new ones. I advise you to only replace the board as a last resort as the replacement is likely to be prone to the same problem.

Finally, read all the pages in this thread (especially page 9 and onwards) to get a better understanding of what went bad, how to fix it, and most of all how to avoid it happening again. Replacement scaler boards as a cure for a XHD3000 works just like vodka as a cure for ugly - it simply numbs it for a while and gives you a tremendous headache when it wears off. You need to rig an active cooling solution to prevent the problem from coming back - see page 10 and 11 of this thread for good examples.

In particular follow the user "lacdanan" posts in this thread as he asked many questions on how to fix his monitor and keep it fixed - it will give you a very good idea on what you'll be facing as he was quite successful in repairing his monitor. It's not that complicated once you understand the whole process, but it is important you have the big picture (pardon the pun) in your head before you start this otherwise you'll be disappointed (see post #274 for a tutorial on what *NOT* to do).
 
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Okay, I'm starting my full read through and will be taking notes on paper as I go. Could you clear up for me the difference with the pinball machine procedure (as I don't know the terms you used and I'm not sure exactly what my friend did with his pinball machine soldering exactly) so that I don't get into a 'this will probably work' scenario. :)

Thanks guys.
 
Ask your buddy if he has a reflow machine - if he makes a face then you are on your own for this repair.
 
No reflow machine, but a soldering iron and a heat gun, though I think I'll do the oven method if I can go back and find good directions on here of how to do that correctly.

Anyone that's done this before, I'm on the steps that rev put on here with pictures. I'm all good until between steps 7 and 8. I took the white ribbon out, but I'm not sure from there. It says slide the next main board, but I couldn't get it all of the way off in any direction and I'm not sure if I am supposed to get at the cage that has the part I need to heat up without removing that large board on top of it.

Thanks for any thoughts.
 
There are 2 boards in the back, one is the mainboard (where the video connectors are) and the scaler board. The mainboard is the big bulge in the back, you take that off first in order to get at the scaler board.
 
Does it slide down? I couldn't find how to get it out of the way before cutting the f out of my finger trying to lift and slide it (my finger slid along it instead and cut quite deeply).

Thanks.
 
By the way, once I get it taken out, does anyone have an opinion of oven vs soldering iron / heat gun? Seems like the oven method is more permanent and but it seems much more risky as well.
 
Oven is more risky if you have a crappy oven, put it in upside down, leave it at a stupidly high temperature, or leave it in the oven a stupid amount of time. I personally have never baked the same scaler more than once but I go to extremes to make sure the scaler chip stays cool.
 
Hello, i'm Italian and i have a Syncmaster 305T.
I wanted to compliment the forum that helped me repair my monitor:D
A few days ago it appeared green artifacts on screen:
20130413211629.jpg
 
After reading many forums, I decided groped heating the chip to restore the welds:

I covered with NOMEX the components adjacent to the ALTERA chip

20130416121127.jpg


I made a "bowl" of the aluminum foil tape from 3M

20130416123522.jpg

20130416121916b.jpg


I have fixed a thermocouple above the chip to monitor the temperature

20130416121904.jpg


Adjusted my hot gun at a temperature of 260 °C and flow air medium to high

20130416121956.jpg


I preheated the chip reaching the temperature of 240 ° C gradually.
It took 3 or 4 minutes to reach the temperature slowly.

20130416122819.jpg


Subsequently I increased the temperature of the hot gun at 340 ° C, needed to reach the maximum temperature.
I have reached the temperature of 260 ° C on the thermocouple for approximately 30 seconds after which I started the step of slow cooling.

20130416122333.jpg


It took 2 minutes to cool slowly until the chip at a temperature of 50 ° C and then turn off the hot gun and allow to cool 15 minutes.

I reinstalled the card and the monitor function very well ...!

In the coming days will set heatsink and see if the repair will last .....

Thank you all for the invaluable help.

Alex from italy
 
Nice detailed reply Alex. Please do clarify if you can
After reading many forums, I decided groped heating the chip to restore the welds:
....
....
It took 2 minutes to cool slowly until the chip at a temperature of 50 ° C and then turn off the hot gun and allow to cool 15 minutes.

Thank you all for the invaluable help.

Alex from italy

1 - What is Groped Heating?

2 - 2 minutes to cool slowly till 50'C ?

You decreased heat gun from 260 to 50 in 2 minutes i.e. 210'C Drop in 2 minutes ?
Did you decrease temperature in 4 steps i.e. 50'C every 30 seconds?

How did you gradually step it down? I am asking because I know some people with heat gun etc and they use gradual step downs for bonding polymer/ plastic type stuff.

But they have their own step down temperatures. So wanted to know the step down you used.
 
Sorry for my english....

Nice detailed reply Alex. Please do clarify if you can

1 - What is Groped Heating?

I tried the repair welds

2 - 2 minutes to cool slowly till 50'C ?

You decreased heat gun from 260 to 50 in 2 minutes i.e. 210'C Drop in 2 minutes ?
Did you decrease temperature in 4 steps i.e. 50'C every 30 seconds?

How did you gradually step it down? I am asking because I know some people with heat gun etc and they use gradual step downs for bonding polymer/ plastic type stuff.

But they have their own step down temperatures. So wanted to know the step down you used.

To pass gradually from 210°C to 50°C in two minutes, I have distanced gradually warm gun from the chip and at the same time I have made several step down by lowering the temperature of the gun.
 
Hello, today I installed the cooler recovered from a video card.
The cooler is a ZALMAN VF1000.

First I made ​​an opening in the cage and original and then I built two aluminum brackets shaped with a thickness of 5mm :

20130428115057.jpg


20130428115215.jpg


I later used the mx2 thermal paste to get a better heat dissipation :

20130428123337.jpg


Under the card at the chip Altera I placed the old heat dissipation soft silicone sheet to counteract the pressure generated from the heat sink

20130428125449.jpg


Finally I made an opening in the original case, here is the final result:

20130428144736.jpg


The fan was powered by a voltage regulator UA7805 to the voltage of 5V to not generate too much noise.
I'm several days I use the monitor and they have never presented artifacts, very good:D!
Bye
 
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Interesting mod - finding a way to securely mount that big heatsink was brilliant although most people will have trouble accessing the tools necessary to do what you did.

I have 2 concerns:

First is that your heatsink is blowing hot air *INTO* the back casing (I know that GPU heatsink/fan, I own 2 similar models) because of the way the casing slopes on each side of the heatsink, You have a Samsung 305T/305T+ (I can tell by the casing and the 200mm VESA mount), which means the RF shielding is also acting as a heatsink for your power supply. If you open up the power supply you'll see a strip of TIM on top of the power supply casing that contacts directly with heatsinks. Have you replaced the caps on the power supply? If you haven't you might want to be careful as the extra heat blown back in from the scaler chip might cause them to blow. I personally never put the casing back on because there are way too many parts needing cooling on the 305T to make me happy.

Second, you ended up reusing the TIM. TIMs are relatively speaking not very efficient and that scaler chip throws out heat nearly in CPU/high-end GPU levels (and none of those use TIM). You might want to take a closer look at your measurements and see if you can get direct contact with the heatsink. Try cutting away a bit more of the RF shielding so that the entire heatsink contact plate and surrounding heatpipes have room to mount on the scaler chip properly.

Overall a very credible design - lacdanan would be quite envious as he originally proposed a CPU heatsink like a Hyper 212+ EVO but he and I couldn't figure out a way to mount such a beast.
 
The realization was not difficult, it is enough for a jigsaw and a few other tools.
First serves an aluminum plate or anticorodal 5 mm thick.
It is mportant that the thickness is 5mm for exactly the heatsink firmly against the chip.
I did some tests with different thicknesses.
I colored the chip with the dye to verify the transfer of the color on the heat sink and that the flatness is optimal.
For cutting aluminum with the jigsaw, it is important to a specific blade for aluminum and use cutting oil in abundance.

The aluminum supports made ​​of 5mm thick combined with the VF1000 allow you to have exact height of the heat sink.
To ensure that the chip adheres perfectly, I slightly bent the brackets to have an elastic effect:

zalmanlayout1.jpg


I have not changed the power supply capacitors, there are still the original ones.
The VF1000 fan blowing on the chip but the air given off comes out the side of the sink.
In order to ensure proper air circulation also on the power supply, the other will install a small fan that will ensure a continuous stream.

I remain at your disposal for any clarification.

Bye
 
The VF1000 fan blowing on the chip but the air given off comes out the side of the sink.

That's my point, since the casing overlaps the ends of the heatsink the air is pushed into the back. I would tape the ends of the casing so the air deflects away from the monitor.

I still think you would be better off getting rid of the TIM and going direct contact.
 
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